Federal Judge Bars Trump Administration from Expelling Asylum Seekers

The Washington Post / Maria Sacchetti, Marianne LeVine, Arelis R. Hernández

17:14 JST, July 3, 2025

A federal judge in the District of Columbia on Wednesday barred the Trump administration from expelling asylum seekers from the United States, dealing a blow to the administration’s efforts to curtail crossings at the U.S. southern border.

In a 128-page decision, U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss invalidated a proclamation that President Donald Trump signed on his first day in office that declared an “invasion” on the border and invoked emergency presidential powers to deport migrants without allowing them to apply for asylum. Migrants and advocacy groups sued in February, saying federal law allows people to apply for the humanitarian protection no matter how they entered the United States.

Moss stayed his ruling for 14 days pending a likely appeal from the Trump administration. But he wrote that the executive branch cannot create an “alternative immigration system” that tramples on existing federal law.

“The Court recognizes that the Executive Branch faces enormous challenges in preventing and deterring unlawful entry into the United States and in adjudicating the overwhelming backlog of asylum claims of those who have entered the country,” Moss wrote. But he added that the Immigration and Nationality Act “provides the sole and exclusive means for removing people already present in the country.”

Depending on the appeal, the ruling could reopen asylum processing on the southern border and enable migrants to cross into the United States in hopes of seeking refuge. The decision is the latest in a long line of litigation over federal asylum law, and the case ultimately could reach the Supreme Court.

The White House warned that the decision could lead to another surge on the southern border with Mexico.

“A local district court judge has no authority to stop President Trump and the United States from securing our border from the flood of aliens trying to enter illegally,” said White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson. “This is an attack on our Constitution, the laws Congress enacted, and our national sovereignty. We expect to be vindicated on appeal.”

The Supreme Court, ruling last week on Trump’s attempts to end birthright citizenship, curtailed judges’ authority to issue the type of sweeping nationwide injunctions that have paused several administration policies while they were under legal review.

But Moss, as part of his ruling Wednesday, certified all asylum seekers “currently present in the United States” as a legal class, making his ruling applicable to most people who would be affected by Trump’s policy. Class-action lawsuits were one avenue the Supreme Court justices suggested in their birthright citizenship ruling that lower courts could still provide broad relief to many people in the same situation.

Attorneys in the asylum case had sought class certification from the judge well before Friday’s birthright citizenship ruling. Still, Trump administration officials quickly attacked Moss as “a rogue district court judge” and his ruling as an attempt “to circumvent the Supreme Court.”

“The American people see through this,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on social media. “Our attorneys … will fight this unconstitutional power grab.”

The ruling is a legal roadblock for the Trump administration as it pursues an aggressive plan to deport 1 million undocumented immigrants this year. Federal courts have limited some of Trump’s policies – a judge on Wednesday blocked him from terminating temporary protected status for Haitians, for instance – but immigration arrests are up sharply, border crossings are down dramatically and Congress is working through the final stages of a sprawling tax bill that would turbocharge funding for immigration enforcement.

Illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border have been reduced to a trickle, with fewer than 9,000 apprehensions in May, the most recent month available, compared with fewer than 118,000 in May 2024.

Trump officials have celebrated the sharp decline and noted that it is in stark contrast to the average of 2 million apprehensions annually in the first years of the Biden administration as migrants fled pandemic-ravaged economies and authoritarian regimes in nations such as Venezuela.

But advocates for immigrants argued that the Trump administration achieved the lower numbers by overstepping presidential authority and ignoring laws passed by Congress. Federal law stipulates that immigrants on U.S. soil may apply for asylum, even if they crossed the border illegally.

In the lawsuit, lawyers for 13 immigrants from countries including Afghanistan, Cuba and Turkey argued that their clients fled persecution and deserved a chance to apply for protection. Some plaintiffs had already been deported back to their native countries or to an alternative country, including Panama. Moss has not yet ruled on whether the government must bring back the deportees.

Advocacy groups had also argued that migrants were being deprived of protection.

“The importance of restoring asylum in the United States cannot be overstated, not only for the people whose lives are in danger but for our standing in the world,” said Lee Gelernt, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who argued the case. “The decision also sends a message that the President cannot simply ignore laws Congress has passed.”

To qualify for asylum protection, migrants must demonstrate a fear of persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or another reason that makes them a target in their native country.

Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2021, also was marked by immigration surges, and he implemented multiple asylum restrictions that were overturned by federal courts. Illegal border crossings declined during the pandemic, but they began to rise again before Trump left office.

After returning to the White House in January, Trump renewed his efforts to curb asylum. He signed a proclamation on his first day called “Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion” and began to reject asylum seekers from the border.

Trump has argued that he maintains the legal authority to bar entry to migrants under Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which authorizes the president to suspend the entry of foreigners deemed detrimental to the United States.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that Trump could use that legal authority to implement the third version of his travel ban targeting people mainly from Muslim-majority nations.

But Moss drew a bright line between people outside the United States and those who are already here, saying the authority to bar entry “does not mean that the President has the authority to alter the rules that apply to those who have already entered.”

Trump and his surrogates have long argued that smugglers abuse U.S. asylum laws to help migrants gain entry into the country and remain for years as their cases wind through the backlogged immigration system. Biden officials restricted asylum access last year after record numbers of border apprehensions damaged his political standing.

Biden officials curtailed asylum for those who crossed the border illegally, but they also created legal pathways into the country so that people could apply for legal protection, such as parole programs for Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans. That administration also allowed migrants waiting in Mexico to schedule appointments to cross the border legally through a Customs and Border Protection app called CBP One.

Trump, in contrast, essentially foreclosed access to asylum after taking office in January, advocates for immigrants argued, by flatly rejecting migrants at the southern border. Trump officials also ended the parole program and discontinued the app appointments.

In the Mexican border city of Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas, there were between 700 and 800 migrants who had applied for or obtained appointments through CBP One when Trump took office. His administration canceled them all.

Many lost hope and gave up, said the Rev. Abraham Barberi, leader of One Mission Ministries, which helps feed migrants in the Mexican government shelter.

But about 200 – mostly families with children – have remained in the shelter for two reasons, he said.

“One, because they still have hope something will change,” Barberi said. “And two, because they have nowhere else to go.”

Immigrant rights lawyers said Moss’s ruling on the asylum issue could lead to increased border crossings if the Trump administration is forced to restore access to asylum.

“People remain fearful of what is happening in this country. I don’t know how people will react,” said Keren Zwick, the director of litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center and co-counsel with the ACLU on the case. “But sometimes the news, and how our legal system works, does not really matter to someone fleeing for their lives.”

Migrants are aware of the Trump administration hard-line enforcement tactics – including a new detention facility that opened this week in alligator-infested swampland in Florida – and many remain afraid to cross into the country, some advocates said.

“They’ve seen the deportations and all that’s happening in the U.S., and they are not sure it’s a place for them anymore,” said the Rev. Juan Fierro of El Buen Samaritano migrant shelter in Juarez, across the border from El Paso.