By Christian Martinez
(Reuters) -U.S. border agents were directed to stop deportations under President Donald Trump’s asylum ban, CBS News reported Monday citing two unnamed Department of Homeland Security officials.
The direction comes after a three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit on Friday partially granted an order that limited the asylum ban, saying it cannot be used to entirely suspend humanitarian protections for asylum seekers, according to CBS.
Officials at Customs and Border Protection were instructed this weekend to stop deportations Trump’s asylum ban and process migrants under U.S. immigration law, CBS said.
Last month, a lower court judge blocked Trump’s ban on asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, saying that Trump had exceeded his authority when he issued a proclamation declaring illegal immigration an emergency and setting aside existing legal processes.
The American Civil Liberties Union brought the challenge to Trump’s asylum ban in February on behalf of three advocacy groups and migrants denied access to asylum, arguing the broad ban violated U.S. laws and international treaties.
Trump has stepped up arrests of immigrants in the U.S. illegally, cracked down on unlawful border crossings and stripped legal status from hundreds of thousands of migrants since January 20. He has vowed to deport millions of people in the country illegally even as the administration has faced dozens of lawsuits across the country for its tactics.
(Reporting by Christian MartinezEditing by Humeyra Pamuk and Lincoln Feast.)
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