Federal Judge Deems Trump’s Asylum Restrictions Unlawful

  • Judge says no legal basis for ‘effective categorical ban’
  • U.S. must return unlawfully deported plaintiffs, hold hearings

Photographer: Manuel Medir/Getty Images

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A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from applying rules that make it harder for immigrants to seek asylum in the U.S., in a lawsuit brought by 12 adults and children with accounts of sexual abuse, kidnappings and beatings in their homelands.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington issued the ruling Wednesday and also required the government to return to the U.S. those plaintiffs who were deported unlawfully and to provide them with new asylum hearings.