A federal judge in California blocked a recently-implemented Biden Administration policy that bars some migrants who cross the border illegally from seeking asylum in the United States because they did not seek asylum prior to arriving in the United States, NPR reports. The judge immediately imposed a 14-day stay on his order to allow the administration to appeal his order.
Federal District Judge Jon Tigar, an Obama appointee based in San Francisco, said the Biden policy to bar migrants from seeking asylum in the US if they did not use an app to apply for asylum prior to coming to the border or did not apply for asylum in a country they passed through to get to the United States. The policy intended to dissuade migrants from making illegal border crossings and to encourage orderly asylum applications.
However, Tigar determined that the policy violated US law that allows any foreigner on US soil to make an asylum claim, which would result in an asylum hearing to determine eligibility. Tigar said the Biden policy improperly excluded “noncitizens who enter between ports of entry, using a manner of entry that Congress expressly intended should not affect access to asylum.”