President Trump on Tuesday assailed the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, telling reporters that he intends to file a “major complaint” against the court in the wake of an order denying asylum to migrants who enter the U.S. illegally.
A judge from the Northern District of California, which has cases appealed to the Ninth Circuit, dealt the administration another legal setback this week by blocking the order denying the asylum. Both courts are based in San Francisco.
“You go to the Ninth Circuit and it’s a disgrace, and I’m going to put in a major complaint,” Trump told reporters outside the White House when asked about the judge’s asylum ruling. He did not elaborate on what specific action he might take.
The president railed against the Ninth Circuit for nearly two minutes, claiming that “everybody who wants to sue the United States” does so in the California-based court because “it means an automatic loss” for his administration.
{mosads}”You cannot win if you’re us, a case in the Ninth Circuit, and I think it’s a disgrace when people file, every case gets filed in the Ninth Circuit,” Trump said. “That’s not law. That’s not what this country stands for. Every case that gets filed in the Ninth Circuit, we get beaten and then we end up having to go the Supreme Court.”
U.S. District Court Judge Jon Tigar late Monday sided with opponents of Trump’s policy prohibiting certain immigrants from claiming asylum, granting their request for a temporary restraining order.
“Whatever the scope of the President’s authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden,” Tigar wrote in his 37-page ruling.
Trump on Tuesday dismissed Tigar without naming him, referring to him as “an Obama judge.” Tigar was nominated by the former president in 2012.
Roughly an hour after Trump finished speaking, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued a statement vowing the administration “will take all necessary action to defend the executive branch’s lawful response to the crisis at our southern border.”
Sanders decried Tigar’s ruling as “another example of activist judges imposing their open borders policy preferences.” Her criticism echoed that of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who regularly argued during his tenure that federal judges had overstepped their bounds in rulings on Trump administration policies.
The Ninth Circuit, based in San Francisco, has frustrated Trump repeatedly by ruling against his proposed travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries, and a Department of Justice effort to cut off federal funding for so-called sanctuary cities.
At a White House event earlier Tuesday, the president joked that the Ninth Circuit may attempt to overturn this year’s turkey pardons.
The president has, in the past, been critical of judges and courts that rule against his policies. He referred to the federal judge who initially halted the travel ban as a “so-called judge.”
In 2016, he suggested a judge overseeing a lawsuit against Trump University may be biased against then-candidate Trump because of his Mexican heritage.
Updated: 8:24 p.m.