US Judge blocks Trump’s latest sweeping asylum rule

SAN FRANCISCO: A federal judge in San Francisco on Wednesday blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a new rule that aimed to bar almost all asylum applications at the US-Mexico border.

US District Judge Jon Tigar in the Northern District of California issued a preliminary injunction blocking the rule, which would require asylum-seekers to first pursue safe haven in a third country they had traveled through on their way to the United States.

The decision makes inconsequential a ruling by Washington D.C. District ­Judge Timothy Kelly earlier in the day that declined to block the rule in a different lawsuit brought by immigration advocacy groups, lawyers said.

The Trump administration had been quick to celebrate that decision, saying it would discourage abuse of the asylum process. Following the action by the San Francisco court, the rule will now be suspended pending further proceedings. “Today’s ruling is an important victory for incredibly vulnerable individuals and families,” said Melissa Crow, an attorney from the Southern Poverty Law Center - one of the groups challenging the ban - in a statement. The Trump administration has sought to curtail the increasing numbers of mostly Central American migrants arriving at the US -Mexico border after fleeing violence and poverty in countries such as Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.