A federal judge today refused to issue a temporary restraining order that would halt Donald Trump’s new asylum rules, imposing restrictions on individuals seeking asylum in the United States if they passed through a third country on their way to the border between the U.S. and Mexico.
The new rule will severely curtail the flood of asylum seekers who have been showing up at the US border or are caught by the border patrol trying to enter the country illegally.
The rule is meant to crack down on asylum seekers coming to the U.S. more for economic reasons than to escape persecution in their home countries. Administration officials say this could help close the gap between the initial asylum screening that most people pass and the final decision on asylum that most people do not win. The goal in part is to allow quicker determinations in these cases.
The policy follows the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols, commonly referred to as the “remain in Mexico” policy. Under that policy, asylum seekers were often told to go back to Mexico to await hearings, rather than be allowed to remain in the U.S.
Democrats railed against that policy, with 2020 hopeful Beto O’Rourke calling it “inhumane.”
If open borders advocates don’t like the fact that the U.S. bars people from seeking asylum for economic reasons, they should change the law. But opposition to the new rule has little to do with poor, illiterate immigrants trudging across the desert looking for a new life in America. It’s about fundamentally altering the demographic and political make-up of the US.
This isn’t the end of court challenges to the new rule. Reuters reports:
But the new rule still faces other challenges, as Judge Timothy Kelly in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia only ruled on a temporary restraining order and the lawsuit against the substance of the rule will go forward.
Moreover, a separate but similar lawsuit is also seeking a temporary restraining order against the asylum rule and was due to be heard in a federal court in California later on Wednesday.
The rule, which went into effect on July 16, will remain in force for now, enabling immigration judges to deny more asylum claims.
Those who are genuinely threatened with physical violence in their own countries should get a fair hearing in a U.S. immigration court. But the vast majority of “asylum seekers” are captured trying to enter the U.S. illegally. It makes their claims of being refugees ring hollow.
As open borders advocates go venue shopping, looking for a friendly liberal judge who will find some kind of legal justification — no matter how far-fetched — to block the administration’s reform efforts, the humanitarian problems at the border continue to grow. Democrats in Congress — many of whom deny a crisis even exists — sit on their hands and kibitz from the sidelines while throwing smears at Trump and border patrol officers trying to do their best.
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