WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd August, 2020) A legal brief filed with a Federal appellate court urges judges to uphold a lower court ruling rejecting an executive order by President Donald Trump that prohibits migrants from applying for political asylum at locations other than US ports of entry, Senator Patrick Leahy said in a press release.
"The brief makes clear that - as the [Washington] DC District Court concluded - President Trump's executive action contravenes unambiguously clear provisions in statute protecting the rights of migrants to apply for asylum anywhere along borders," the release said on Friday. "President Trump cannot just undo clear provisions of the law with the stroke of a pen."
In addition to Leahy, Senators Robert Menendez, Dick Durbin, Ron Wyden, Sheldon Whitehouse, Richard Blumenthal, Jeff Merkley, Cory Booker and Mazie Hirono signed the brief along with Congressmen Jerry Nadler and Zoe Lofgren, the release said.
In August 2019, Judge Randolph Moss of the US District Court in Washington issued a 77-page ruling striking down a Trump administration rule that made individuals who entered the United States by crossing the US-Mexico border outside a port of entry ineligible for asylum.
The following month, the US Supreme Court issued an unsigned order allowing the Trump administration policy to remain in force as a lawsuit filed by 19 migrants and two immigrant rights advocacy groups works its way through US courts, according to media reports.
