"The Attorney General has recently explained the grave threat such injunctions pose to our Constitutional order. Immigration and border security policy cannot be run by any single district court judge who decides to issue a nationwide injunction. This ruling is a gift to human smugglers and traffickers and undermines the rule of law. We previously asked the Supreme Court to set aside the district court’s injunction in its entirety, our request remains pending with the Court, and we look forward to it acting on our request", the White House said in a statement.
The new rule, which the Trump administration announced in July, would deny asylum to anyone who transited to the United States through a third country in which they did not first seek safe haven.
According to Monday's court order, a nationwide injunction was necessary to prevent uneven enforcement. According to the US judge, a nationwide injunction is supported by the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires the reviewing court to hold any unlawful actions and findings that are found to be arbitrary, an abuse of discretion, or not in accordance with the law.
Under the new asylum rules, migrants would only be eligible for asylum if they were trafficked into the United States, denied asylum in a country or countries prior to arriving to the United States, or traveled through a country or countries that were not part of major multilateral refugee treaties.
Caravans of migrants from Central American countries seeking asylum moved toward the United States through Mexico last fall. Trump called the surge of arrivals a crisis and declared a national emergency in February in a failed attempt to secure funds for constructing a border wall.
The Trump administration has decreed various policies including the Remain in Mexico plan, which appears to have resulted in a drop of apprehensions at the US-Mexico border. Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan claimed that the number of apprehensions dropped by at least 40 percent for the months of June and July.