Trump Blocked From Enforcing Asylum Limits for Migrants (2)

A Washington federal appeals court blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from restricting asylum access for migrants who cross the border without authorization.

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit found Friday that the federal immigration statute does not allow Trump to deport migrants “under summary removal procedures of his own making,” nor to suspend their right to apply to asylum.

Trump’s proclamation, and its related implementation guidance, represents an “unprecedented decision to preemptively and categorically deny asylum to many thousands of foreign individuals,” Judge J. Michelle Childs, a Joe Biden appointee, wrote for the majority of the three-judge panel.

“Denying asylum in one stroke, without any information about the affected individuals, necessarily ignores every risk of persecution they face when forced back to where they came from. The challenged decision thus necessarily denies asylum even to foreign individuals who are sure to face persecution without it,” she wrote.

And if the administration “wishes to modify this carefully structured and intricate system” governing asylum procedures outlined in the federal immigration statute, the Immigration and Nationality Act, “it must present those arguments to the only branch of government able to amend the INA: Congress,” Childs wrote.

The panel’s decision upholds a July 2025 ruling by US District Judge Randolph Moss, who found the president’s order, which cited an invasion to curtail asylum access, conflicts with federal immigration statutes governing asylum procedures.

Trump wrote in his proclamation, issued in January 2025, that foreign citizens “engaged in the invasion across the southern border” may not access asylum “until I issue a finding that the invasion at the southern border has ceased.” The government issued guidance that instructed officers to block the entry of migrants crossing the border in between ports of entry or otherwise without legal documents.

Moss wrote that while he “recognizes that the Executive Branch faces enormous challenges” in preventing migrants from crossing the border illegally and processing a backlog of asylum claims, the federal immigration statute “provides the sole and exclusive means” to deport people already in the country.

Moss also certified a class of migrants who are or will be subject to Trump’s proclamation and be present in the US. His order came just days after the Supreme Court ruled to limit the ability of lower court judges to hand down nationwide injunctions in a challenge to Trump’s birthright citizenship restrictions.

The DC Circuit later said the government could enforce the restrictions on asylum eligibility while litigation continued but couldn’t disqualify migrants from other forms of protection against torture.

The appeals court also pared back the class to include only migrants who would request protection if not for the proclamation and who are not otherwise legally ineligible for that relief.

Lee Gelernt, ACLU attorney who argued the appeal, said the decision “will potentially save the lives of thousands of people fleeing grave danger who were denied even a hearing under the Trump administration’s horrific asylum ban.”

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement that the Justice Department “will seek further review of this badly flawed decision and we are confident we will be vindicated.” She also said the asylum system has been “abused and exploited by illegal aliens without credible claims,” and that Trump “has utilized his lawful authority to end this egregious exploitation.”

‘Indispensable’ Tool

The Justice Department told the appeals court, which heard oral argument in November, that Trump’s proclamation is an “indispensable” tool to secure the border. Government lawyers also argued that the president’s power to suspend the entry of foreigners whose presence would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States” allows him to expel those who’ve entered too.

The appeals court on Friday rejected that argument. The executive branch already has the power to deport people in the country illegally, and the executive branch may not create “a new, unwritten form of even more expedited removal power distinct from that which Congress codified,” Childs wrote.

The appeals court also held that this case is different from earlier litigation over the first Trump administration’s Title 42 directive, a pandemic-era order that allowed the government to “expel” foreigners who crossed the border without considering their claims for protection.

And though the Supreme Court has limited the use of universal injunctions, judges may still grant broad relief in cases that meet the requirements to be certified class actions, the majority held.

Judge Justin Walker, a Trump appointee, said in a partial dissent that he would have narrowed the class, warning that the lower court’s ruling would apply to “potentially millions” of people who don’t have grounds to sue.

Walker raised the hypothetical of a resident of India’s remote North Sentinel Island, named Bob, who faces persecution after he advocates for a less isolationist foreign policy, flees the island, and ultimately crosses the US-Mexico border.

“Bob may do all these things. And if so, he would fall within the class definition. Still, to put it mildly, that is a speculative and attenuated chain of possibilities,” Walker wrote.

Walker also argued that migrants shouldn’t have a right to file “frivolous or futile” asylum requests. Judge Nina Pillard, a Barack Obama appointee, also sat on the panel.

The border controls are part of a slew of asylum restrictions issued during Trump’s second term in an effort to slash migration at the border. The limits built upon a policy that started under President Joe Biden making it harder for immigrants to make asylum claims at the border. Trump has also cut refugee admissions, a process allowing foreign citizens who fear persecution to apply from abroad to live in the US.

The case is RAICES v. Mullin, D.C. Cir., No. 25-5243, 4/24/26.