Supreme Court Grants Stay of Injunction, Temporarily Upholding Trump’s Asylum Law

The Supreme Court granted a stay of injunction tonight, temporarily upholding President Trump’s asylum law. The U.S. District Court case, Barr vs. East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, centers around Trump’s asylum law change which states “any alien who enters, attempts to enter, or arrives in the United States across the southern land border on or after July 16, 2019, after transiting through at least one country outside the alien’s country of citizenship, nationality, or last lawful habitual residence en route to the United States, shall be found ineligible for asylum.” U.S. Attorney General William Barr, the defendant in the case, applied for a stay of the recent “injunction barring enforcement of the [asylum] rule” “issued by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.” The Attorney General’s stay appeal says the “injunction prohibits the Executive Branch from [addressing the] ongoing crisis at the southern border, with significant implications for ongoing diplomatic negotiations and foreign relations.” In a 7-2 decision, with Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg dissenting, the Supreme Court ruled for the injunction to be stayed “pending disposition of the Government’s appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.” Justice Sotomayor commented that the asylum law change “topples decades of settled asylum practices and affects some of the most vulnerable people in the Western Hemisphere.” Continuing, she says by granting this stay “the Court sidesteps the ordinary judicial process to allow the Government to implement a rule that bypassed the ordinary rulemaking process [which] risks undermining the interbranch governmental processes.” In effect, the asylum law will continue to remain in place pending decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit .