A federal judge on Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump's executive order that sought to prevent migrants crossing the border from seeking asylum or applying for withholding of removal in the U.S., a major blow to Trump as he looks to further enforce his broad immigration crackdown.
U.S. District Judge Randolph Daniel Moss, an Obama appointee, said Wednesday that Trump's Jan. 20 proclamation, which sought to block all migrants "engaged in the invasion across the southern border" from claiming asylum or seeking withholding of removal, exceeds his authority - siding with the ACLU, who brought the suit on behalf of several migrants groups and 13 asylum-seekers earlier this year.
The group urged the court in February to block Trump's proclamation from taking force, arguing that the action was "as unlawful as it is unprecedented."
Moss said Wednesday that Trump "lacks the inherent constitutional authority" to supplant federal statutes governing removals.
JUDGES V TRUMP: HERE ARE THE KEY COURT BATTLES HALTING THE WHITE HOUSE AGENDA
"To hold otherwise would render much, if not most, of the INA simply optional," he added in the 128-page opinion.
Moss stayed the order for a 14-day period to allow the Trump administration to appeal the case to a higher court.
The judge also granted plaintiffs' request to certify a class of migrants who would were either subject to Trump's proclamation heard by the court or would be subject to it in the future.
The class certification also allows the lawsuit to proceed under the new limitations set forth by the Supreme Court last week in Trump v. CASA. That ruling limited the scope of injunctive relief that lower courts can provide to plaintiffs, except in certain cases, including challenges brought by a certified class.
Moss acknowledged Wednesday that the executive branch faces "enormous challenges in preventing and deterring unlawful entry" into the U.S, "and in adjudicating the overwhelming backlog" of asylum claims.
But he said neither the U.S. Constitution nor the Immigration and Nationality Act give Trump "the sweeping authority asserted in the proclamation and implementing guidance."
"An appeal to necessity cannot fill that void," he said.
JUDGES V TRUMP: HERE ARE THE KEY COURT BATTLES HALTING THE WHITE HOUSE AGENDA
ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, who represented the plaintiffs in the April court proceedings, praised the decision as a "hugely important" victory for asylum seekers in the U.S.
"Not only will it save the lives of families fleeing grave danger, it reaffirms that the president cannot ignore the laws Congress has passed and the most basic premise of our country's separation of powers," Gelernt said.
The ACLU and other plaintiffs had argued that the Trump administration's 212(f) proclamation in question falsely cited an "invasion" at the southern border as a justification to deny asylum seekers protection in the U.S.
"Under the proclamation, the government is doing just what Congress by statute decreed that the United States must not do," they said in a court filing earlier this year. "It is returning asylum seekers - not just single adults, but families too - to countries where they face persecution or torture, without allowing them to invoke the protections Congress has provided."
The judge's decision was blasted by Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who described Moss as a "marxist" judge in a post on X.
"To try to circumvent the Supreme Court ruling on nationwide injunctions a marxist judge has declared that all potential FUTURE illegal aliens on foreign soil (eg a large portion of planet earth) are part of a protected global "class" entitled to admission into the United States," Miller said.
The news comes as Trump has sought to prioritize hard-line immigration policies in his second presidential term. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments earlier this year over another order Trump signed, which seeks to end birthright citizenship in the U.S.
The administration has also cracked down on deportations, invoking a 1798 wartime immigration law to more quickly send hundreds of migrants to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador earlier this year.
