Appeals Court Blocks Trump Bid to Override Asylum Laws at Border

A federal appeals court drew a hard line on executive power Friday, ruling that Donald Trump cannot use his own border procedures to sidestep asylum law. The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the Immigration and Nationality Act gives people the right to apply for asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border and does not let a president override that system by proclamation.

Judge J. Michelle Childs wrote the majority opinion, joined by Judge Cornelia Pillard. Judge Justin Walker, the Trump appointee on the panel, wrote a partial dissent. The court concluded that the administration cannot remove the plaintiffs under “procedures of his own making,” cannot suspend the right to apply for asylum, and cannot curtail procedures that protect people from being sent to countries where they may face persecution or torture.

The ruling matters immediately at the border because it keeps intact the legal process Congress set up for migrants who reach the United States and ask for protection. It also preserves the separate safeguards for anti-torture claims, which can block removal even when asylum itself is denied. In practical terms, the administration cannot treat asylum as something it can switch off on its own, even in the name of faster enforcement.

The White House did not immediately comment. Lee Gelernt, an ACLU attorney, called the ruling “essential” for people fleeing danger and said the administration had denied people even a hearing on asylum claims under what he described as an unlawful and inhumane executive order.

The decision extends a broader legal fight that has already pushed back against Trump’s attempts to shut down asylum at the border. On July 2, 2025, a federal court blocked a Trump proclamation aimed at completely shutting down asylum in RAICES v. Noem. That case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigrant Justice Center, the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, the Texas Civil Rights Project, the ACLU of the District of Columbia and the ACLU of Texas on behalf of RAICES, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project.

The administration can now seek review by the full D.C. Circuit or ask the Supreme Court to take the case. For now, the appeals panel has made the separation-of-powers point explicit: the president cannot erase asylum procedures that Congress wrote into law.