RIGHT SPEAK: Supreme Court Authorizes Trump to Deny Asylum to Central Americans

Photo: John Moore/Getty Images

The Supreme Court’s action Wednesday means the Trump restrictions can be enforced everywhere—and likely for many months. Litigation in the case could take another year or longer to conclude.

The Supreme Court authorized the Trump administration for now to deny asylum to Central Americans who cross through other countries on their way to the U.S., a boost for White House efforts to tighten the southern border.

The court, in a brief written order, stayed the effect of lower court rulings that barred the administration from enforcing the asylum restrictions. One of those injunctions was issued just this week by a federal judge in California.

The policy, one of several measures the Trump administration has taken to deter immigration from Latin America, demands that refugees seek asylum in a safe country they enter before reaching the U.S.—and bars them from refuge in the U.S. should they fail to do so. For those taking the land route from El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras, that ordinarily would mean Mexico.

The court’s unsigned order, a single paragraph that didn’t provide its legal rationale, allows the government to implement the policy while litigation proceeds. In December, the court, by a 5-4 vote, declined to lift lower court orders blocking a less severe policy that denied asylum to applicants who didn’t present themselves at an official port of entry. It wasn’t immediately clear how the court distinguished between the two cases.