On Tuesday, an Obama-appointed judge blocked a Biden Administration rule that had successfully lowered border crossings and, simultaneously, helped crack down on immigrants seeking to cheat U.S. asylum policy.
Judge Jon Tigar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California blocked the DHS-DOJ rule, established in May after the expiration of Title 42 order, which had restricted border-crossers based on public health safety concerns. By his ruling, Judge Tigar sided with the left-wing immigration activists who had sued the DOJ over the policy.
The judge gave the Justice Department 14 days to appeal his ruling, which it announced it plans to immediately do, NPR reports:
"The Justice Department disagrees with the district court's ruling today," a DOJ spokesperson wrote in a statement, calling the policy a "lawful exercise of the broad authority granted by the immigration laws."
Biden’s rule presumes immigrants are ineligible for asylum if unless they either go through proper channels to apply for asylum or attempt to obtain asylum in a country they passed through on their way to the U.S.
Judge Tigar cited the presumption of ineligibility as one reason of his reasons for blocking the Biden rule. He also deemed the traditional 30-day notice for public comment period to be inadequate, Fox News reports:
“Tigar, an Obama appointee, blocked the rule on the basis that the notice procedures put in place for the rule are insufficient under the Administrative Procedure Act, which determines how rules are enacted by federal agencies and requires certain notice-and-comment periods. The administration provided a 30-day notice period for the asylum rule, but Tigar deemed that to be insufficient because of the rule's complexity.”