This Friday, the 24th, an appeals court blocked American President Donald Trump’s decree, which suspended access to asylum on the southern border of the United States, a fundamental pillar of the Republican president’s plan to repress immigration.
A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia concluded that immigration laws give people the right to seek asylum at the border, and that the president cannot circumvent that provision.
The court’s decision stems from a move taken by Trump on Inauguration Day in 2025, when he declared that the situation at the southern border constituted an invasion of the United States and that he was “suspending the physical entry” of migrants and their ability to seek asylum until he decided the situation was over.
The court concluded that the Immigration and Nationality Act does not authorize the president to remove applicants through “procedures of his own making,” nor does it allow him to suspend applicants’ right to seek asylum or restrict procedures for adjudicating their claims against torture.
“The power, by proclamation, to temporarily suspend the entry of specified aliens into the United States does not include implied authority to override the mandatory process under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) for the summary removal of aliens,” wrote Judge J. Michelle Childs.
“We conclude that the text, structure, and history of the INA make clear that, in granting the power to suspend entry through presidential proclamation, Congress did not intend to grant the executive branch the broad removal authority it claims it has,” the opinion stated.
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The government can ask the full appeals court to reconsider the decision or appeal to the Supreme Court. The order does not formally take effect until the court reviews any request for reconsideration.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, in an interview with Fox News TV channel, said she had not seen the decision, but considered it “predictable”, blaming judges with political motivations. “They are not acting as true defenders of the law. They are looking at these cases from a political perspective,” she said. Leavitt said Trump was taking steps that are “entirely within his powers as commander in chief.”
Another White House spokeswoman, Abigail Jackson, said the Justice Department would appeal the decision. “We are certain that we will be acquitted,” she wrote in an emailed statement.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it strongly disagreed with the decision. “President Trump’s top priority continues to be the screening and vetting of all foreign nationals who intend to enter, live or work in the United States,” DHS said in a statement.
Defenders welcome the decision
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said previous lawsuits have already lifted the asylum ban, and the ruling won’t change much in practice. The decision, however, represents yet another legal defeat for one of the president’s main policies.
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“This confirms that President Trump cannot, on his own, stop people from seeking asylum; that it was Congress that determined that asylum seekers have the right to seek asylum, and that the president cannot simply invoke his authority to uphold this measure,” said Reichlin-Melnick.
Advocates say the right to seek asylum is enshrined in the country’s immigration laws and that denying migrants this right puts people fleeing war or persecution in grave danger.
Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which defended the case, said in a statement that the appeals court’s decision is “critical for those fleeing danger and who have been denied even a hearing to file asylum claims due to the Trump administration’s illegal and inhumane decree.”
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The Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, hailed the court’s ruling as a victory for its clients. “Today’s ruling from the D.C. Circuit affirms that the president’s capricious actions cannot supersede the rule of law in the United States,” said Nicolas Palazzo, director of advocacy and legal services at Las Americas.
Judge Justin Walker, a Trump appointee, wrote a partial dissenting opinion. He said the law offers immigrants protection from deportation to countries where they would be persecuted, but that the government can issue blanket denials of asylum requests.
Walker, however, agreed with the majority in stating that the president cannot deport migrants to countries where they will be persecuted or deprive them of mandatory procedures that protect them against expulsion.
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In the presidential decree, Trump argued that the Immigration and Nationality Act gives presidents the authority to suspend the entry of any group they deem “harmful to the interests of the United States.”
Trump’s order was a further blow to access to U.S. asylum, which has been severely restricted under the Biden administration, although under Biden, some avenues of protection for a limited number of asylum seekers at the southern border have continued.
For Josué Martínez, a psychologist who works at a small migrant shelter in southern Mexico, the decision represented a possible “light at the end of the tunnel” for many migrants who previously hoped to seek asylum in the US but ended up trapped in precarious conditions in Mexico.
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“I hope there is something more concrete, because we have heard this kind of news before: a district judge files an appeal, there is a temporary suspension, but it is only temporary and then it ends,” he said.
Meanwhile, migrants from Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela and other countries have struggled to survive as they try to seek refuge in Mexico’s asylum system, which is all but collapsing under the weight of new pressures and cuts in international funding.
This week, hundreds of migrants, mostly stranded migrants from Haiti, left the city of Tapachula, in southern Mexico, on foot, in search of better living conditions in other parts of the country.
