WASHINGTON: The White House will fight a federal judge’s decision blocking the Trump administration from enforcing a new rule that aimed to bar almost all asylum applications at the US-Mexico border, it said on Thursday.
US District Judge Jon Tigar in the Northern District of California issued a preliminary injunction on Wednesday blocking the rule, which would require asylum-seekers to first pursue safe haven in a third country they had travelled through on their way to the United States.
“We intend to pursue all available options to address this meritless ruling and to defend this Nation’s borders,” the White House said in a statement.
Democratic lawmakers and civil rights groups have criticised the rule as being in breach of US immigration law. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has said the restrictions curtail the right to seek asylum and run afoul of international legal standards.
The San Francisco court’s decision means the rule will be suspended pending further proceedings. It was not clear what steps the administration of President Donald Trump, a Republican, planned to take to fight the ruling.
Lawyers said the California ruling makes inconsequential a ruling by US District Judge Timothy Kelly in Washington, DC, made a few hours earlier on Wednesday that declined to block the rule in a different lawsuit brought by immigration advocacy groups.
The White House had praised that earlier ruling. — Reuters
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