LOS ANGELES — A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to continue accepting asylum claims from all eligible migrants arriving in the United States, temporarily thwarting the president’s latest attempt to stanch the flow of migrants crossing the southern border.
Judge Jon S. Tigar of the US District Court in San Francisco issued a preliminary injunction against a new rule that would have effectively banned asylum claims in the United States for most Central American migrants, who have been arriving in record numbers this year. It would have also affected many migrants from Africa, Asia, and other regions.
The decision came on the same day that a federal judge in Washington, hearing a separate challenge, let the new rule stand, delivering the administration a win.
The rule, which has been applied on a limited basis in Texas, requires migrants to apply for and be denied asylum in the first safe country they arrive in on their way to the United States — in many of the current cases, Mexico — before applying for protections here. Because migrants from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala make up the vast majority of asylum-seekers arriving at the southern border, the rule would virtually terminate asylum there.
The government, which is expected to appeal the decision, has said that the rule intends to prevent exploitation of the asylum system by those who unlawfully immigrate to the United States. By clogging the immigration courts with meritless claims, the government argues, these applicants harm asylum-seekers with legitimate cases who must wait longer to secure the protection they deserve.
Under the policy, which the administration announced on July 15, only immigrants who have officially lost their bids for asylum in another country or who have been victims of “severe’’ human trafficking are permitted to apply in the United States.
Hondurans and Salvadorans have to apply for asylum and be denied in Guatemala or Mexico before they become eligible to apply in the United States, and Guatemalans have to apply and be denied in Mexico.
The policy reversed longstanding asylum laws that ensure people can seek safe haven no matter how they got to the United States. On July 16, the day the new rule went into effect — initially in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas — the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the policy in court in San Francisco. The case in Washington was filed separately by two advocacy organizations, the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or RAICES.
Lee Gelernt, the ACLU lawyer who argued the case in San Francisco, said after a court hearing on Wednesday that “the stakes are enormous. If the rule were upheld, it would virtually end asylum at the southern border for everyone other than Mexicans.’’
The groups challenging the rule argued that immigration laws enacted by Congress expressly state that a person is ineligible for asylum only if the applicant is “firmly resettled’’ in another country before arriving in the United States.
The laws also require an asylum-seeker to request protection elsewhere only if the United States has entered into an agreement with that country and the applicant was guaranteed a “full and fair procedure’’ there, they said.
During the hearing, a lawyer for the Justice Department, Scott Stewart, said that a large influx of migrant families had spawned a “crisis’’ that had become “particularly stark’’ and created a “strain’’ on the asylum system.
“Migrants understand the basics of the incentives and are informed about how changes in law and policy can affect their options,’’ Stewart told the judge.
Tigar voiced concern about forcing asylum-seekers to apply for protection in Mexico or Guatemala. “We don’t see how anyone could read this record and think those are safe countries,’’ he said, referring to the rule’s language that migrants must apply to the first safe country.
The judge also said that the government did not address the “adequacy of the asylum system in Guatemala,’’ which is not equipped to handle a surge in applications.
In federal court in Washington, two advocacy groups made similar arguments against the new policy.
But that judge, Timothy J. Kelly, found that the groups did not sufficiently support their claim that “irreparable harm’’ would be done to the plaintiffs in the case if the policy were not blocked. While the rule would affect migrants seeking asylum, the judge said, “the plaintiffs before me here are not asylum-seekers.’’
“They are only two organizations, one of which operates in the D.C. area, far from the southern border,’’ he added.
In San Francisco, Tigar did not rule on the merits of the case, but his order prevents the rule from being carried out until the legal issues can be debated more fully.
In recent years, the number of migrants petitioning for asylum has skyrocketed.
Migrant families and unaccompanied children have been turning themselves in to Border Patrol agents and then requesting asylum, which typically enables them to remain in the United States for years as their cases wind through the backlogged immigration courts. Only about 20 percent of them ultimately win asylum, according to the government, and many of those whose applications are rejected remain in the country unlawfully.
The administration announced the new asylum policy despite the fact that Guatemala and Mexico had not agreed to the plan, which means those countries have made no assurances that they would grant asylum to migrants intending to go to the United States.
