2018 Closes

2018 Closes On a Week Filled With Immigration Victories and New Challenges

2018 proved that the only thing you can predict about the Trump administration’s immigration policy is it’s unpredictable. On Wednesday, two separate court decisions dealt blows to the Trump administration’s efforts to deter asylum seekers. On Thursday, the administration announced an unprecedented new plan to force asylum seekers to remain in Mexico, overturning current practices in use for decades And on Friday, the president held Congress hostage as he continued to threaten to shut down the government over $5 billion in border wall funding

The most recent rollercoaster began on Wednesday morning when a federal court in Washington, DC struck down part of former Attorney General Jeff Session’s efforts to prevent victims of domestic violence or gangs from receiving asylum. The ruling prevents the administration from applying the new limits at the credible fear interview stage, the initial screening for many asylum seekers apprehended at the border. However, the ruling did not prevent Sessions’ limits on asylum from being applied in affirmative asylum interviews or immigration court proceedings.

Later on Wednesday, a federal judge in San Francisco issued a preliminary injunction in a case challenging the Trump administration’s asylum ban for individuals who entered the United States between ports of entry. The injunction extends a previous order which had halted the plan only days after it went into effect. On Friday afternoon, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to reject the Trump administration’s request to put the decision on hold, a further blow to the asylum ban.