A federal appeals court on Friday ruled that President Donald Trump can’t use an executive proclamation to bar immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border from seeking asylum — a cornerstone policy of his aggressive agenda to limit all immigration to the United States.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed in a 2-1 decision that Trump had overstepped his executive authority and that he could not bypass federal immigration law, which gives individuals the opportunity to seek asylum even if they cross the border illegally.

“Denying asylum in one stroke, without any information about the affected individuals, necessarily ignores every risk of persecution they face when forced back to where they came from. The challenged decision thus necessarily denies asylum even to foreign individuals who are sure to face persecution without it,” reads the majority opinion, written by Judges J. Michelle Childs and Cornelia Pillard, both appointed by Democratic presidents.

Friday’s decision is a decisive blow to Trump, who ran his presidential campaign on the promise that he would close the U.S.-Mexico border to immigrants, including those fleeing dangerous circumstances in their home countries. The ruling could also reopen an important path for Cubans, Venezuelans, Haitians and other immigrants fleeing dangerous conditions who for years sought asylum through the border before coming to South Florida while their immigration cases were pending.

On his first day back in the White House last year, Trump declared in a presidential proclamation that there was an “ongoing invasion” and that he would use his executive powers to protect states. “Millions of aliens who potentially pose significant threats to health, safety, and national security have moved into communities nationwide,” Trump wrote.

The proclamation suspended entry to people crossing between ports of entry and barred them from seeking asylum. It resulted in plummeting border encounters, and allowed quick deportations without following mandatory procedures under federal law.

It is unclear when the Trump administration will begin implementing the appeal court order. Lawyers expect the government will go to the Supreme Court, as it has done on other immigration cases where federal courts have repeatedly struck down administration orders.

On Friday, the appeals court upheld a lower court’s ruling. After that lower court ruling, border authorities were supposed to be giving people screenings for other forms of protection, such as withholding of removal and Conventions Against Torture Protections. Those protections shield from people deportation but are harder to get than asylum, which is already difficult to obtain.

The appeals court emphasized that federal immigration law has specific exceptions to apply for asylum, including allowing application within a year of coming to the U.S., and that the government’s interpretation of asylum law in the case would let the president eliminate asylum for any reason.

“The asylum statute thus makes plain that the right to apply for asylum is broadly available to all foreign individuals present or arriving in the United States unless expressly restricted from applying,” the ruling Friday said.

In a dissent, Trump-appointed Judge Justin Walker said his disagreement was partial. He concluded that he “agreed with much of the majority’s thoughtful opinion” — including that the executive branch could not send people to countries where they would be persecuted and that Trump could not strip them from protections in the Convention Against Torture and Witholding of Removal.

However, Walker said that the lower court had “wrongly issued relief to potentially millions... without standing.” The president, he added, had “already exercised his lawful discretion to deny all asylum applications. So he may foreclose the application process as futile.”

In a statement, Lee Gelernt, the American Civil Liberties Union attorney who argued the case in favor of asylum seekers, celebrated Friday’s decision.

“This is a huge win. It means that no longer can the Trump administration simply turn away those fleeing horrific danger without even a hearing,” Gelernt told The Miami Herald in a statement.

Atormeys for the ACLU, its chapters in D.C. and Texas, the National Immigrant Justice Center, the Texas Civil Rights Project and the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies were all involved in the case. Several groups that provide services to asylum seekers were the plaintiffs.

The Department of Homeland Security and the White House condemned Friday’s ruling in statements to the Herald. White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said the Trump administration would “seek further review of this badly flawed decision” and that officials are “confident” they will be vindicated.

“For years, our asylum system was abused and exploited by illegal aliens without credible claims and who relied on a clogged up system to live in the United States for years without justification. President Trump has utilized his lawful authority to end this egregious exploitation and we will never cease in our efforts to safeguard the American people,” Jackson said.

A Homeland Security spokesperson told the Herald that this would “not be the last word on the matter” — suggesting that the Trump administration will head to the Supreme Court.

“America’s asylum system was never intended to be used as a de facto amnesty program or a catch-all, get-out-of-deportation-free card. President Trump’s top priority remains the screening and vetting of all aliens seeking to come, live, or work in the United States,” DHS said. “We will use all of the tools in our toolbox to ensure that the integrity of our legal immigration system is upheld, fraud is uncovered and expeditiously addressed, and illegal aliens are removed from the country.”

Asylum seekers are generally protected from being deported to their home countries while their cases are pending, which can take years as immigration courts face massive backlogs. Immigrants can claim asylum on the basis of persecution for nationality, race, religion, political opinion, or membership in a social group. But they must present concrete evidence of their persecution to the federal government. In January 2025, 31.3% of all asylum cases were granted in immigration courts nationwide, according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. That number had plummeted to under 5% as of February 2026, the researchers found.

Federal government data show that immigrant encounters with U.S. officials at the border have dropped — more than 2 million in fiscal year 2024 compared to nearly 444,000 in fiscal year 2025. Since October, Customs and Border Protection has registered just 60,000 encounters. The Trump administration has touted these numbers as a success of its immigration crackdown.

Border authorities had encounters with 151,000 Cubans, 88,673 Haitians, and 261,045 Venezuelans in fiscal year 2024, while President Joe Biden was in office. Under Trump, in fiscal year 2025, border authorities registered 31,944 encounters with Cubans, 10,192 encounters with Haitians, and 64,826 encounters with Venezuelans. All three nationalities have had a combined total of 1,490 encounters since October, data show. An immigrant can have more than one immigration encounter with the government.

Biden had also sought to limit restrict asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border to decrease the number of immigrants showing up there.

Under Biden policy, immigrants were restricted to seeking asylum through ports of entry and using a now-defunct mobile app to schedule appointments with border authorities. The Biden administration also encouraged immigrants to apply for entry to the U.S. through lawful pathways, such as a parole program for Cubans, Haitians, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans to live and work in the U.S. for two years.

Those Biden-era restrictions could be lifted if less than an average of 1,500 people were stopped at border for a consecutive week.

The courts also struck down the Biden restrictions on asylum, and advocates sharply criticized them as violations of refugee rights.

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