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The
order, which goes into effect on Saturday, means that migrants
will have to present themselves at U.S. ports of entry to
qualify for asylum. U.S. immigrant advocates rushed to court to
try to block the policy.
"I just signed the proclamation on asylum - very important,"
Trump told reporters on Friday before leaving for Paris. "People
can come in but they have to come in through the points of
entry."
The order followed other rules unveiled on Thursday that sought
to limit asylum claims.
Trump made his hard-line policies toward immigration a key issue
ahead of Tuesday's midterm elections. He has vowed to deploy
troops at the border to stop a caravan of mainly Honduran
migrants, currently edging their way through Mexico.
Several hundred of the caravan started north again on Friday
after a rest in Mexico City. Many of them have said they want to
seek asylum in the United States, citing violence in their own
countries.
Trump's proclamation said mass migration on the border had
precipitated a crisis and he was acting to protect the national
interest.
The order will be in effect for 90 days or until the United
States reaches an agreement with Mexico allowing it to turn back
asylum-seekers who had traveled through Mexico, whichever comes
first.
U.S. and Mexican diplomats have held talks over the issue this
year, but there has been little indication Mexico would agree to
such a pact.
Mexico's interior ministry had no comment on the Trump order, an
official at the ministry said.
INJUNCTION SOUGHT
Three civil rights groups sued on Friday in San Francisco
federal court, seeking an injunction against Trump's order.
The lawsuit said the order violated the Immigration and
Nationality Act, which allows anyone present in the United
States to seek asylum regardless of where they entered the
country.
"President Trump's new asylum ban is illegal. Neither the
president nor his cabinet secretaries can override the clear
commands of U.S. law, but that's exactly what they're trying to
do," Omar Jadwat of the American Civil Liberties Union said in a
statement.
The lawsuit was brought by ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law
Center, and Center for Constitutional Rights.
Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor at Cornell Law School, said the
administration may struggle to justify the national security
concerns underpinning the order, as the flow of migrants across
the southern border has fallen in recent years.
"We also have an obligation under international law not to
return people to a country where they fear persecution," he
said.
Currently, migrants who cross into the United States illegally
from Mexico can claim asylum, an option chosen by many families
with children who hand themselves in to border guards. Asylum
seekers who opt to cross at official entry points often wait for
days before they enter U.S. territory.
Rights groups have said the Trump administration has
deliberately slowed the processing of migrants at official
ports.
The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday the
United States must make sure anyone seeking refugee protection
and in need of humanitarian assistance can get both promptly and
"without obstruction."
Many of the hundreds of Central American migrants who left
Mexico City on Friday to press north toward the United States
boarded subways before dawn to reach the outskirts of the vast
capital.
The bulk of a further 4,500 people gathered at a Mexico City
stadium are expected to follow them over the weekend.
"We're hungry, we can't keep waiting, we're moving on," said
Honduran migrant Roni Suazo at a bustling subway station. "Our
mission is to go to the United States, not Mexico."
(Reporting by Roberta Rampton and Yeganeh Torbati in Washington
and Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Additional reporting by
Lizbeth Diaz, Roberto Ramirez and Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico
City; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Paul Simao and Rosalba
O'Brien)
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