Judge strikes down Trump’s asylum ban

A federal judge in Washington, D.C. ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration cannot deny entry to people crossing the southern border to apply for asylum. The court found that neither the constitution nor federal immigration law allow the president to make that decision.

The proclamation to deny entry to asylum seekers at the southern border was issued by President Trump on his first day in office.

Asylum has been part of U.S. law since 1980, allowing those who fear for their safety to seek refuge in the U.S. as long as they can show a credible fear of persecution in their home country. In the past, other U.S. presidents had attempted to make asylum seeking more difficult, but the scope of Trump’s order was uecedented.

Several immigrant rights advocacy groups filed a lawsuit to halt the policy in February, including the ACLU, the Texas Civil Rights Project, and the National Immigrant Justice Center. They argued that the proclamation endangered thousands of lives of those fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries.

In his 128-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss wrote that “The President cannot adopt an alternative immigration system, which supplants the statutes that Congress has enacted.”

Immigrant rights groups took issue with the president’s repeated characterization of the situation at the southern border as an “invasion.”