The Trump administration’s inhumane Asylum Ban 2.0 blocking protections for vulnerable families who cross through Mexico to the United States has once again been blocked by a federal judge. “The ban, enacted by the administration in July, made people who travel through a third country on their way to the United States ineligible for asylum, forcing them to apply instead in Mexico or elsewhere on their route,” Mother Jones reports.
While federal judge Jon Tigar initially blocked the administration’s cruel policy in July, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in August limited the ruling to only California and Arizona, saying “Tigar could reinstate a nationwide ban if there was additional evidence for why it was necessary.”
“On Monday he did that,” BuzzFeed News reports. “The court continues to recognize the gravity of this situation,” said American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt, “and the reality that asylum-seekers face grave danger along the entire southern border.”
The reality is that this barbaric policy would affect possibly hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers who have no option but to cross through Mexico to ask for protections at our southern border, as well as thousands who have already been waiting in Mexico for their chance to ask for asylum, many for months now.
It’s not just immigrant rights and human rights activists who have condemned Asylum Ban 2.0, either. An asylum officer said that others at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agreed that it was “racist and illegal,” adding she found out about it from the news, and not getting any official notification about the policy until the next day. “I saw it right as I was coming to work. We’re all aghast.”
