WASHINGTON, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Supreme Court late Wednesday permitted the Trump administration to enforce its tough asylum restrictions nationwide prohibiting migrants from seeking asylum in the United States.
The rule, put forward by the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security on July 15, will disallow asylum application by migrants entering the United States through a third country without seeking protection there.
The Trump administration said it was necessary to limit the number of Central American migrants crossing the U.S. southern border via Mexico, citing "an unprecedented surge of" people enter the United States "illegally" and seek asylum when they are caught.
"BIG United States Supreme Court WIN for the Border on Asylum!" Trump tweeted after the Supreme Court announced the order.
Among the nine Supreme Court Justices, Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented the order. "Once again the Executive Branch has issued a rule that seeks to upend longstanding practices regarding refugees who seek shelter from persecution," Sotomayor wrote in her dissent.
Sotomayor said asking green light to the rule is "an extraordinary request" from the administration to the Supreme Court. "Unfortunately, the Court acquiesces."
The American Civil Liberty Union (ACLU), a nationwide non-profit organization that claims to defend the individual rights and liberties, also challenged the rule.
The ACLU wrote in response to the Supreme Court's order, the current ban would eliminate virtually all asylum at the southern border, even at ports of entry, for everyone except Mexicans, who did not need to transit through a third country to reach the United States. "The court should not permit such a tectonic change to U.S. asylum law."
