A judge has blocked the Trump administration’s asylum restrictions just days before they were due to take effect. U.S. District Judge James Donato from San Francisco struck down the rules that would have made it even harder for asylum seekers to gain approval. The move won’t immediately affect many people since the U.S. has paused asylum requests for the most part, citing health concerns from the coronavirus pandemic. The Trump administration claimed the new restrictions were necessary to cut down on asylum fraud, but the judge didn’t buy that argument. Instead, Donato said in addition to the acting Homeland Security Secretary lacking the authority to create the rule, the Trump administration had “recycled” its arguments against asylum so many times that it was becoming a problem. “In effect, the government keeps crashing the same car into a gate, hoping that someday it might break through,” Donato said. President-elect Biden has vowed to undo Trump’s immigration policies once he enters office.
