A federal judge on Tuesday overturned US President Joe Biden’s 10-week-old asylum policy, rejecting the heart of the administration’s effort to get migration across the southern border under control.
Judge Jon Tigar of the US district court in San Francisco said the policy to force asylum seekers to apply for admission to the United States from their home countries or from countries they pass through on the way was “unlawful.”
His ruling could again force the US government to accept the asylum claims of any petitioner who crosses into the country — potentially sparking a new surge of migrants to the US-Mexico frontier.
Tigar though immediately suspended his ruling for 14 days to give the Biden administration time to appeal it.
The Justice Department said that it disagreed with the ruling and would appeal, and in the meantime seek a longer stay on its implementation.
The department said in a statement that it is confident that the rules the Biden administration put in place in May are “a lawful exercise of the broad authority granted by the immigration laws.”
The ruling came in a case brought by the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant and other migrant advocacy groups after the Biden administration announced on May 16 its new approach, aimed at stemming the up to 200,000 migrants trying to cross the southern border each month.
They argued that the Biden policy effectively presumes asylum ineligibility for those at the border.
