US Appeals Court Upholds Block Of Trump's Third-Country Transit Ban On Migrants - Filing

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 07th July, 2020) The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has upheld a lower court's decision to block the Trump administration from denying asylum to migrants who traveled through a third country before reaching the southern US border, court documents revealed.

"The panel affirmed the District Court's grant of a preliminary injunction against enforcement, in the four states on the United States-Mexico border, of a Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security joint interim final rule... which - with limited exceptions - categorically denies asylum to aliens arriving at the border with Mexico unless they have first applied for, and have been denied, asylum in Mexico or another country through which they have traveled," US Judge William Fletcher wrote on Monday.

The Appeals Court agrees that the Trump administration's policy is unlawful under the Administrative Procedures Act, Fletcher said and noted that the policy does nothing to ensure that a third country is a safe option for migrants.

On June 30, a lower court judge ruled the Trump administration's third-country transit ban against asylum-seeking migrants is unlawful.

The administration implemented the policy in July 2019 as part of an effort to deter the flow of asylum-seeking migrants coming to the United States from Central America.