The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to lift an order preventing it from enforcing a rule that would limit migrants’ ability to apply for asylum after a federal judge reimposed a ban on the rule the day before.
U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar on Monday reinstated a nationwide ban on the asylum rule, which would make most asylum-seekers who pass through another country before reaching the U.S. ineligible for asylum, with exceptions for victims of trafficking and migrants who have been denied asylum in the countries they traveled through.
{mosads}The Northern California judge had issued a similar injunction in June, right after the rule was announced, but had it narrowed by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to cover just California and Arizona and sent back to Tigar, who reinstated it.
The Trump administration had previously asked the Supreme Court to lift Tigar’s order in August.
In Tuesday’s brief, solicitor general Noel Francisco said that the new nationwide order “underscores the need for this Court to grant the government’s pending application for a stay of that injunction, which remains ripe for resolution.”
“The district court’s injunction greatly impairs the government’s and the public’s interest in maintaining the integrity of the border, in preserving a well-functioning asylum system, and in conducting sensitive diplomatic negotiations,” he said.
Tigar, an Obama appointee, has argued that the rule contradicts existing asylum laws created by Congress.
Last year, the Supreme Court did not allow the administration to enact a similar policy preventing people who cross the U.S.-Mexico border outside an official entry port from seeking asylum.