WashU Expert: Latest Trump asylum change is illegal

Attorney General William Barr announced July 15 a new Trump Administration plan, effective the next day, barring Central American immigrants from seeking asylum in the United States unless they seek it first in other Central American countries, a move that a Washington University in St. Louis immigration expert says “violates the clear language of the law.”

He described it as “yet another roadblock to asylum” by the administration of President Donald Trump.

“This comes on the heels of several attempts — many of which the courts have rightly struck down as illegal — to reduce our country’s refugee and asylum admissions to a trickle,” said Stephen H. Legomsky, the John S. Lehmann University Professor Emeritus at the School of Law and former chief counsel for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Obama administration.

Learn more