Federal Judge Blocks the Trump Administration's Fast-Track for Child Asylum Cases, Restoring the Old Notice Rules Until November 13
Judge Brendan Hurson ruled that giving unaccompanied children as little as 24 hours' notice of an asylum interview - down from 21 days - conflicts with the child-protection law Congress wrote in 2008.
A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from enforcing new policies that immigrant rights groups said were designed to fast-track the deportations of unaccompanied children seeking asylum, Reuters reported. US District Judge Brendan Hurson, sitting in Greenbelt, Maryland, issued a temporary restraining order preventing US Citizenship and Immigration Services from dramatically shortening the notice children get for asylum interviews and from restricting their ability to reschedule them, and ordered the administration to reinstate the prior policies.
The policies at issue were adopted in August and September. Under one, USCIS eliminated a 21-day advance notice requirement for asylum interviews and began providing unaccompanied children little notice - sometimes fewer than 24 hours - that an interview had been scheduled. Under the other, interviews could be rescheduled only on a showing of 'exceptional circumstances,' a stricter standard than before. The lawsuit, filed two weeks ago by legal service providers including the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights and The Door, argued the policies were unlawful and inconsistent with statutory child-protection requirements, and made it difficult, if not impossible, to advocate for the thousands of children the groups serve.
Hurson agreed on the law as it stands. He held that the minimal notice USCIS now provides is inconsistent with the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, which requires the asylum process to account for the specialized needs of unaccompanied children - an obligation he said extends to the procedure leading up to the interviews - and that the stricter rescheduling standard ran afoul of the Administrative Procedure Act, rejecting the administration's contention that its rule merely mirrored what federal law required. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees USCIS, did not respond to a request for comment, Reuters reported.
The order remains in effect until November 13 while Hurson considers a longer-term block. The case is The Door v. Edlow, No. 8:26-cv-04326, in the US District Court for the District of Maryland. For Texas, which receives more unaccompanied-child cases than any other state, the ruling restores - at least for the next two weeks - the three weeks of preparation time that children's lawyers say makes a fair interview possible.
