A federal judge in California has disregarded a higher court’s ruling to reinstate a nationwide injunction against one of the Trump administration’s new immigration rules.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar issued a court order for a nationwide halt to enforcement of a Trump administration rule requiring asylum-seekers who come through multiple countries to apply for refuge in a safe “third country” along the way.
Tigar had already blocked the rule once before in mid-August, but — after the case was appealed — the injunction was dialed back by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which limited to the injunction to areas within their geographic territory. In effect, this meant that the new policy would only have gone into effect for the time being in Texas and New Mexico, but not in Arizona and California, which are within the 9th Circuit’s territory.
“While nationwide injunctions are not the ‘general rule,’ ” Tigar — an Obama appointee who is a judge for the Northern District of California — concluded in his latest decision, “they are appropriate ‘where such breadth [is] necessary to remedy a plaintiff’s harm.'”
The Trump administration responded to the 9th Circuit’s August decision by asking the Supreme Court to allow for the enforcement of the asylum rule despite the ongoing legal fight. – READ MORE