A federal judge ruled Wednesday that President Trump’s attempt to bar most illegal immigrants from making asylum claims at the southern border is illegal — a decision that could blow a hole in the administration’s border policies.
Judge Randolph Moss, an Obama appointee to the court in Washington, said he was aware of the struggles the government faces in trying to stop illegal immigration. But he said Congress laid out rules for the border, and Mr. Trump’s need for expediency can’t override those rules.
“Here, nothing in the [Immigration and Nationality Act] or the Constitution grants the President or his delegees the sweeping authority asserted in the proclamation and implementing guidance. An appeal to necessity cannot fill that void,” the judge ruled.
He put a hold on his ruling to give the president’s team a chance to appeal his decision.
The case is likely to quickly become the next big front in legal battles over Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Other big cases have dealt largely with interior matters, such as deportations and Mr. Trump’s power to federalize and deploy National Guard troops to quell anti-ICE violence in Los Angeles. But this case goes straight to the heart of Mr. Trump’s biggest success — the U.S.-Mexico border.
Mr. Trump’s get-tough policy has paid off spectacularly so far, with the asylum blockade contributing to record-low illegal border traffic.
One day last week, Border Patrol agents recorded just 137 illegal crossers on the southern boundary — the lowest single-day total in a quarter century and well below the Biden years, when agents regularly tallied days with 10,000 crossers detected.
Nationwide, including the land and maritime boundaries and airports, Customs and Border Protection recorded just 25,243 unauthorized entries in June — 12% below the previous monthly record Mr. Trump set earlier this year, and shattering the Biden average.
White House border czar Tom Homan called it the “Trump effect.”
“We have never seen numbers this low,” said Mr. Homan, a former Border Patrol agent and later head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Perhaps the most striking number is that for the last two months, no illegal immigrants were caught and released by the Border Patrol. Bogus asylum claims had been a strategy for migrants to earn catch-and-release.
Judge Moss said the INA, the country’s chief immigration law, lays out who is allowed into the country, and what exceptions there are for those who show up without first gaining permission.
Those exceptions include migrants claiming asylum or who argue they face persecution or violence if sent back to another country — what’s known as “withholding of removal.”
Asylum in particular had become a loophole with illegal immigrants lodging bogus claims to gain a foothold in the U.S.
Mr. Trump in January issued a proclamation declaring the border under “invasion” and suspending asylum and withholding claims.
Judge Moss, in a 128-page ruling, certified a class action for migrants who show up at the border.
That applies to any migrants who are already in the U.S. or who might show up here and who would be affected by Mr. Trump’s asylum ban proclamation.
He also suggested that previous migrants blocked by Mr. Trump’s orders could be in line for a retroactive reprieve. He asked the parties to submit briefs about that issue.
Judge Moss said he was reluctant to postpone his ruling but settled on a 14-day delay. He said that gives the government a chance to appeal, but also to start making affirmative plans for how to carry out his orders if higher courts don’t intervene to block him.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller decried the decision, saying Judge Moss’s ruling was startling in its breadth.
“To try to circumvent the Supreme Court ruling on nationwide injunctions a marxist judge has declared that all potential FUTURE illegal aliens on foreign soil (eg a large portion of planet earth) are part of a protected global ‘class entitled to admission into the United States,” Mr. Miller said on social media.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.