The Patriot Post® · Trump's Asylum Halt Stymied

For the majority of American voters, it was an electoral priority to close the border and reduce the amount of illegal immigration that was permitted under the Biden administration. Therefore, President Donald Trump, on the first day of his second term, suspended asylum, except in special cases determined by the secretaries of state and homeland security, in an effort to staunch the flow of illegal aliens.

Joe Biden recklessly ended a plethora of commonsense policies that Trump 45 put in place, including Remain in Mexico. This policy forced immigrants to wait south of the border for their hearings. However, once Remain in Mexico was ended, illegal aliens used ubiquitous claims of asylum to game the system and get into the country without consequence.

Using Biden’s loophole, migrants would show up at the border, claim asylum, answer some initial questions, and then be allowed to stay in the U.S. interior. There were so many migrants claiming asylum that their cases were backlogged by some five to seven years — and as long as they stayed out of headline-making trouble, ICE wouldn’t come knocking.

For this reason, Trump 47 more or less suspended the asylum system on day one. On the heels of his executive order, the Department of Homeland Security announced that anyone attempting to cross into the country between ports of entry would not be permitted to apply for asylum. Seems pretty fair: If you break the law in order to enter the United States illegally, then you will face severe and enduring consequences.

However, lo and behold, a federal court has struck down this latest commonsense policy. In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia just declared that President Trump cannot suspend the asylum system because he must adhere to the Immigration and Nationality Act.

As The New York Times explains, “Existing immigration law ‘does not allow the president to remove plaintiffs under summary removal procedures of his own making,’ Judge J. Michelle Childs wrote for the majority. She rejected the administration’s view of the law, which would allow it to ‘unilaterally and heedlessly return individuals even to countries where they will most certainly face persecution.’”

The Trump administration has two options: either let the case go to a full appeals court or take it straight to the U.S. Supreme Court. It needs to appeal either way.

However, it is also necessary for Congress to change the law if anything is going to stick and not depend on a future administration upholding good executive orders. No one should hold their breath here, though. Congress is not a useful body for getting things done.

Ultimately, this is yet another case of the federal courts stymying President Donald Trump’s commonsense agenda and mandate. While we are thankful for checks and balances to curtail the abuse of power, it is infuriating to watch left-wing groups like the ACLU undermine the American people by exploiting a bad law. It is also hard to argue that this is an abuse of power when Biden’s open-border policy flooded the country with “asylum seekers” who commit crimes and largely hate America and its people.

We cannot have wide-open borders again if we expect to remain a sovereign country.