Judge strikes down Trump order preventing asylum requests, protections for illegal immigrants

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to prevent migrants who cross the border from seeking asylum or applying for withholding of removal in the U.S., ruling that the order exceeds the president’s executive authority.

U.S. District Judge Randolph Daniel Moss, an Obama appointee, said Wednesday that the order exceeds Trump’s authority to suspend legal protections for migrants crossing the border into the U.S. illegally, stressing that neither the Immigration and Nationality Act, nor the Constitution, grants the executive branch authority to “replace the comprehensive rules and procedures set forth in the INA and the governing regulations,” including the right to seek asylum or apply for the withholding of removal.

“The Court recognizes that the Executive Branch faces enormous challenges in preventing and deterring unlawful entry into the United States and in adjudicating the overwhelming backlog of asylum claims of those who have entered the country,” Moss said in his order.

“But the INA, by its terms, provides the sole and exclusive means for removing people already present in the country, and, as the Department of Justice correctly concluded less than nine months ago, neither § 1182(f) nor § 1185(a) provides the President with the unilateral authority to limit the rights of aliens present in the United States to apply for asylum.”

The decision was blasted by Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who described Moss as a “marxist” judge in a post on X.

“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,” Miller said.

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