The court ruled that Trump’s presidential powers did not authorise him to set up an ‘alternative immigration system’.A federal court has ruled that President Donald Trump overstepped his authority by barring asylum claims at the southern border of the United States, as part of his broader immigration crackdown.
On Wednesday, US District Judge Randolph Moss warned that Trump’s actions threatened to create a “presidentially decreed, alternative immigration system” separate from the laws established by Congress.
The country had previously enshrined the right to asylum in its laws. But on January 20, upon taking office for a second term, President Trump issued a proclamation invoking the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
“This authority,” Trump wrote, “necessarily includes the right to deny the physical entry of aliens into the United States and impose restrictions on access to portions of the immigration system.”
But Judge Moss, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, pushed back on that assertion in his 128-page decision (PDF).
“Nothing in the INA or the Constitution grants the President or his delegees the sweeping authority asserted in the Proclamation,” Moss wrote.
He emphasised that the president had no power to “replace the comprehensive rules and procedures” in US immigration law with an “extra-statutory, extraregulatory regime”.
Asylum is the process by which individuals request protection on foreign soil when they fear persecution or harm. While asylum applications face a high bar for acceptance, successful applicants are allowed to remain in the country.
But Trump has framed immigration across the US’s southern border with Mexico as an “invasion” led by foreign powers. Advertisement
He has used that ration …
