Houston Chronicle by Lomi Kriel Nov. 9, 2018
President Donald Trump on Friday invoked national security powers to prevent migrants crossing the border illegally from applying for asylum, though advocates immediately challenged it in a federal court in San Francisco.
Trump in his decree said migrants should seek asylum at ports of entry and that he would commit additional resources to such official crossing points in anticipation of a large influx.
If a judge does not intervene, the measure would take effect Saturday.
It is certain to cause chaos at over-burdened ports of entry along the southern border. Dozens were already camped this week on or near international bridges from Brownsville to El Paso as they waited to apply for asylum and, at the San Diego port of entry, migrants are waiting up to five weeks to be processed. The Rio Grande Valley, where more than 11,500 families were apprehended for crossing illegally last month, is expected to particularly feel the crush.
The president, who has railed for weeks about a caravan of mostly Central American migrants walking through Mexico to reach the United States, issued the proclamation based on the same emergency authority to control the country’s borders that he cited last year when banning travel from several Muslim nations. Federal judges quickly halted the measure, though the Supreme Court allowed the administration to implement a limited version after an 18-month legal fight.
Legal experts predict a similar battle over the president’s attempt to restrict asylum. U.S. immigration law for decades has explicitly allowed those who fear persecution to ask for protection whether or not they enter the country illegally. The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups argued in seeking the injunction that the administration violated that asylum statute, as well as federal law governing how agencies are allowed to change regulations.
“Ever since the horrors of World War II, the world’s nations have committed to giving asylum seekers the opportunity to seek safe haven,†said Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, an advocacy group that is part of the lawsuit. “The Trump administration cannot defy this most elementary humanitarian principle, in violation of U.S. and international law, with a flip of a presidential pen.â€
The president and senior White House officials said that the number of immigrants necessitated the action. New federal statistics showed 60,745 people were arrested or deemed inadmissible at the southern border in October, more than any other month since Trump took office.
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