He said that while the government included information about the asylum process in Mexico in its court briefings, he couldn’t find a “scintilla of evidence” about the adequacy of the asylum system in Guatemala, which Salvadoran and Honduran migrants cross before reaching the U.S. border.
Attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the groups suing, argued that the policy is “arbitrary and capricious,” and violates U.S. immigration law because protections “cannot be categorically denied based on an asylum-seeker's route to the United States.”
“If this rule were upheld it would essentially be the end of asylum at the southern border,” said ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, who argued the case before Judge Tigar.
The decision came hours after U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, in Washington D.C., said he was allowing the “Third Country” asylum policy to stand on a separate legal challenge.
The White House applauded that decision in a statement as “a victory for Americans concerned about the crisis at our southern border. The court properly rejected the attempt of a few special interest groups to block a rule that discourages abuse of our asylum system.”
Between 2017 and 2018, asylum applications increased by nearly 70%, according to government figures. The majority of migrants apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border are Central American families and children, and many say they are fleeing gang violence and poverty in their home countries, as well as government inaction to address these issues.
During the first eight months of this fiscal year, border authorities arrested nearly 525,000 non-Mexican migrants — nearly twice the number in the prior two years combined, according to government court filings.