Federal Judge Reinstates Nationwide Injunction Preventing Asylum Transit Ban

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, September 9, 2019

LAW LAB MEDIA CONTACT
Ramon Valdez; [email protected]; 971-238-1804

Oakland, CA 一 Today, a federal court restored a nationwide injunction which prevents the Trump Administration from denying asylum to those fleeing persecution if they passed through another country prior to reaching the United States. The court’s nationwide injunction had been issued on July 24, 2019. It was then upheld but narrowed in its scope by the Ninth Circuit of Appeals. “Today’s decision helps to prevent some of the chaos that has been created by this Administration’s complete disregard for the law,” said Jordan Cunnings, staff attorney at Innovation Law Lab.

In its decision, the federal court acknowledged that plaintiff organizations would, in fact, “suffer a variety of harms” if the asylum transit ban were allowed to go into effect outside of the Ninth Circuit.  For example, the court noted that Innovation Law Lab’s national programming, including its pro bono programs and pro se workshops for people fleeing persecution, would suffer in the absence of a nationwide injunction. The court also cited the need to maintain uniform immigration policy, the text of the Administrative Procedures Act, and the “major administrability issues” that would arise in a ban that applied only outside the Ninth Circuit. 

In its initial injunction, the court had analyzed the government’s rule against the overwhelming evidence — submitted by the Trump administration itself — that, in the court’s words documented “in exhaustive detail the ways in which those seeking asylum in Mexico are subject to violence and abuse from third parties and government officials, denied their rights under Mexican and international law, and wrongly returned to countries from which they fled persecution.” Notably, the court recognized that “even though this mountain of evidence points one way, the agencies went the other — with no explanation.”

“These reckless immigration policies, designed to circumvent asylum law, have dramatically and unnecessarily increased human suffering in North America,” said Ramon Valdez, Director of Strategic Initiatives at Innovation Law Lab. “Refugees deserve to be met with policies of compassion, not animosity.”