The Latest on a court ruling putting the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy on hold (all times local):
2:45 p.m.
A federal court ruling that blocked a signature Trump administration policy quickly spread to immigration courtrooms on the border Friday as migrants had their cases heard.
In El Paso, an administrator entered a courtroom with an urgent message for the judge, informing him of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that halted the government’s policy forcing immigrants to wait out their cases in Mexico.
The message was delivered just as a judge heard the case of a Central American mother and her partner, whose two young children waited outside the courtroom.
The couple were moved to tears when they learned that they could get into the U.S. but with restrictions. The couple and two children under the age of 10 will be put into government detention to wait, but they won’t have to return to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
“Do you guys understand that,” Herbert asked through an interpreter. “There was a pretty significant change in the law in the middle of your testimony.”
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2:20 p.m.
A federal court’s ruling that temporarily blocks the Trump administration’s policy forcing asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico has produced confusion in some immigration courtrooms.
Immigration Judge Philip Law in San Diego delayed a final hearing on a Honduran man’s asylum case to April 17 after a government attorney couldn’t answer his questions about the effect of Friday’s ruling.
The government attorney said she asked her supervisor how to address the ruling and that he didn’t know what to do either.
Law ordered the government to file a legal brief. Law said it wasn’t his call on whether the asylum-seeker would stay in the U.S. or be returned to Mexico, deferring to the Department of Homeland Security.
The government attorney later told the asylum-seeker that he may get released in the U.S.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked the “Remain in Mexico” policy that the Trump administration put in place for those seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.
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