{"id":27392,"date":"2018-12-20T22:29:09","date_gmt":"2018-12-20T22:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/colorlines.madeostudio.com\/article\/federal-judge-blocks-restrictions-who-can-seek-asylum\/"},"modified":"2018-12-20T22:29:09","modified_gmt":"2018-12-20T22:29:09","slug":"federal-judge-blocks-restrictions-who-can-seek-asylum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/article\/federal-judge-blocks-restrictions-who-can-seek-asylum\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal Judge Blocks Restrictions on Who Can Seek Asylum"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n

Federal Judge Blocks Restrictions on Who Can Seek Asylum<\/h3>\n

\n By Shani Saxon<\/span> Dec 20, 2018<\/span>\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n Share<\/span>\n
\n Twitter<\/span><\/a>\n Faceook<\/span><\/a>\n Email<\/span><\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
\n
\n \n \"Federal\n <\/picture>\n <\/figure>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

A federal judge on Wednesday (December 19) blocked former Attorney General Jeff Sessions\u2019 policy preventing immigrants fleeing domestic and gang violence from seeking asylum in the United States, Aljazeera <\/a>reports. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan<\/a> ruled that the guidelines for asylum set forth by the Trump administration are no longer allowed to be used when establishing a \"credible fear.\" He determined those policies to be \u201carbitrary, capricious and in violation of the immigration law.\"<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In June of this year, Sessions reversed an Obama-era precedent that \"allowed more women to claim credible fears of domestic abuse,\" as reported by The New York Times<\/a>. Sessions said at the time, \"An alien may suffer threats and violence in a foreign country for any number of reasons relating to her social, economic, family or other personal circumstances\u2026yet the asylum statute does not provide redress for all misfortune.\" <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The American Civil Liberties Union<\/a> (ACLU) filed a lawsuit in August in response to the Trump administration’s new policy on behalf of a dozen asylum seekers, including children, who were victims of sexual abuse, kidnappings and beatings in their home countries, ABC News<\/a> reports. In his ruling on the suit, Judge Sullivan ordered federal officials to return \"deported plaintiffs back to the U.S., at no expense to those plaintiffs, to pursue their asylum claims under revised policies,\" according to ABC.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt responded<\/a> to Judge Sullivan\u2019s ruling by saying, \"The court has once again made clear that the Trump administration cannot do an end-run around the decision by Congress to provide protection to vulnerable individuals regardless of where they seek asylum. This ruling will save lives.\" <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s team called<\/a> the ruling \"judicial activism.\" The White House also said in its statement, \"Today, a court has, once again, overridden and undermined United States immigration law. Under the law, asylum is a discretionary benefit for aliens who have a well-founded fear of persecution on account of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. Today\u2019s ruling will further overwhelm our immigration courts with meritless cases, making the existing massive backlog even worse.\"<\/p>\n
\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

Tags<\/h3>\n <\/div>\n
\n
\n Archive<\/a>Asylum<\/a>Criminalization<\/a>Customs and Border Protection<\/a>Department of Homeland Security<\/a>Immigration<\/a>Immigration<\/a>Trump Presidency<\/a> <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He ruled that the Trump administration\u2019s policy of denying asylum for survivors of domestic and gang violence is \u201carbitrary, capricious and in violation of the immigration law.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_gspb_post_css":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[16402,1575,16407,3951,4378,16414,6952,16409],"article-type":[],"topic-meta":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27392"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27392"},{"taxonomy":"article-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-type?post=27392"},{"taxonomy":"topic-meta","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic-meta?post=27392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}