Judge Strikes Down Trump’s New Restrictions on Asylum

We recently learned that the Trump regime has been rejecting a record number of applications for political asylum; 65 percent or more than double the number of applications rejected by the Obama administration.

One reason for the increase is the Trump regime's decision to arbitrarily declare that certain threats, such as gang violence, do not qualify refugees for asylum.

A federal district court judge has now struck down Trump's restrictions.

Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court in Washington found the harsher Justice Department policies "unlawful," and permanently blocked the government "from continuing to apply those policies and from removing plaintiffs who are currently in the United States without first providing credible fear determinations consistent with the immigration laws."

He also ordered the feds "to return to the United States the plaintiffs who were unlawfully deported and to provide them with new credible fear determinations consistent with the immigration laws."

Gang and domestic violence is what led many if not most immigrants to make the dangerous journey to the United States in the first place so removing those credible fears from the list of qualifications for asylum meant rejecting the large majority of applications.

Refugee and asylum law is one of the few areas of immigration law that is actually fairly clear and does not present the White House with many options for changing it, try as they might.

Trump's executive order to block immigrants who crossed the border illegally from applying for asylum was also recently struck down in court.

Judge Emmet Sullivan's name may be familiar because he's the same judge who tore into Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn this week.