This Trump Executive Order Is One Of The Most Extreme ‘Ever Seen’

The Trump administration has essentially eliminated the ability to pursue asylum at the border, attempting to erase by executive order a right established in that, based on the executive order, border agents “have been instructed to summarily deport migrants crossing into the country illegally without allowing them to request legal protection, according to internal government documents and agency officials.”

The report added: “Two Customs and Border Protection officials, who requested anonymity to discuss internal guidance, said migrants will not be allowed to see an immigration judge or asylum officer under Mr. Trump’s edict, which effectively suspends U.S. obligations under domestic and international law to ensure people fleeing persecution are not returned to danger.”

“Put simply, this order ends asylum at the United States border for anyone fleeing danger, even for families persecuted on the basis of their religion or political speech,” Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project and a frequent litigator against federal immigration policy, told CBS News.

The report also noted that internal documents cited the president’s public health authority, and that the documents “say requests to release migrants with a court notice will need to be approved by Border Patrol headquarters and will only be considered in ‘life-threatening’ situations.”

Legal commentators assailed the executive order’s reasoning.

“Trump claims to have a power in the Constitution that lets him suspend entire acts of Congress,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, told The New Republic. “Immigrants taken into custody have rights. No president can erase immigration law with the stroke of a pen.”

“There is no emergency at the border, where crossings are at a 4-year low,” said Harry Litman, a former federal prosecutor and host of the “Talking Feds” podcast. “There is just a beyond-the-looking-glass President saying a term can mean anything I choose.”

The order “rests on courts buying into the recent, wild theory that asylum-seekers and other migrants are an ‘invasion’ under the Constitution,” said Adam Isaacson, director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America.

Joe Biden himself instituted a near-ban on asylum claims for people who attempted to enter the country between ports of entry, but his administration pointed to the CBP One app as a legal pathway into the asylum process. Biden’s asylum restriction cited similar legal authority as Trump’s, though it did allow migrants to make their initial case to asylum officers.

Still, immigration advocates told HuffPost there were numerous examples of people with asylum claims nonetheless being turned back at the border, and the ACLU and other groups challenged Biden’s restrictions in court.