D.C. Circuit blocks President Trump's asylum proclamation
Melissa Quinn and Jacob Rosen for CBS News reports on a U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit opinion released yesterday blocking President Trump's proclamation suspending asylum and other protections for migrants unlawfully crossing the southern border.
A divided panel of the D.C. Circuit ruled that federal immigration law does not allow the president to summarily remove migrants or to suspend their right to apply for asylum.
Judge J. Michelle Childs authored the decision for the two-judge majority. She was joined by Judge Cornelia Pillard. Judge Justin Walker concurred in part but dissented from the court's conclusion on the legality of Mr. Trump's directive to effectively close the asylum system at the U.S.-Mexico border.
"We conclude that the [Immigration and Nationality Act's] text, structure, and history make clear that in supplying power to suspend entry by Presidential proclamation, Congress did not intend to grant the Executive the expansive removal authority it asserts," Childs, a Biden appointee, wrote for the majority.
The opinion states that
"[t]he Proclamation and Guidance are thus unlawful to the extent that they circumvent the [Immigration and Nationality Act's] removal procedures and cast aside federal laws affording individuals the right to apply and be considered for asylum or withholding of removal protections."
