The Justice Department is asking the Supreme Court to uphold President Donald Trump’s Day 1 proclamation suspending asylum claims at the U.S.-Mexico border, accusing lower courts of “judicial interference” with a cornerstone of his immigration agenda.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the justices to hear the administration’s appeal in a petition docketed Monday.
“The D.C. Circuit should not have the last judicial word on this cornerstone of the President’s immigration policy,” Sauer wrote.
Trump’s proclamation suspends entry for noncitizens who cross outside a port of entry or arrive without proper documentation. Those individuals cannot invoke asylum or other legal protections while Trump declares an invasion at the southern border.
The justices are expected to consider the petition after their new term begins in October. The Supreme Court rejects most requests it receives.
U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss, an Obama appointee, ruled last summer that the policy circumvented Congress. An appeals court upheld that decision in April, prompting the administration’s Supreme Court appeal.
The restrictions remain in effect because the appeals court has delayed issuing its final mandate until the justices decide how to proceed.
Sauer called the proclamation a “commonsense” interpretation of immigration law and argued that courts should defer to the president’s authority to restrict foreign nationals’ entry. He cited the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision upholding Trump’s first-term travel ban.
The policy faces a class-action lawsuit from asylum seekers and three immigrant advocacy organizations represented by the American Civil Liberties Union. The appeals court ruled that only Congress may amend the Immigration and Nationality Act.
[READ MORE: Will Cain Cuts Off Former DNC Chair Jaime Harrison During Heated Fox News Clash]
