UPDATE 2-White House to fight ruling blocking new asylum restrictions

The White House will fight a federal judge's decision blocking the Trump administration from enforcing a new rule that aimed to bar almost all asylum applications at the U.S.-Mexico border, it said on Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar in the Northern District of California issued a preliminary injunction on Wednesday blocking the rule, which would require asylum-seekers to first pursue safe haven in a third country they had traveled through on their way to the United States. "We intend to pursue all available options to address this meritless ruling and to defend this Nation's borders," the White House said in a statement.

Democratic lawmakers and civil rights groups have criticized the rule as being in breach of U.S. immigration law. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has said the restrictions curtail the right to seek asylum and run afoul of international legal standards. The San Francisco court's decision means the rule will be suspended pending further proceedings. It was not clear what steps the administration of President Donald Trump, a Republican, planned to take to fight the ruling.

Lawyers said the California ruling makes inconsequential a ruling by U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly in Washington, D.C., made a few hours earlier on Wednesday that declined to block the rule in a different lawsuit brought by immigration advocacy groups. The White House had praised that earlier ruling.

It complained on Thursday that plaintiffs should not be able to shop for a judge "who will purport to dictate immigration policy to the entire Nation." The new rule, announced July 15, required asylum-seekers to have first applied for asylum and been rejected in one of the countries they traveled through before becoming eligible to apply in the United States. The rule only applies to migrants arriving at the southern land border, effectively shifting the burden to countries such as Mexico and Guatemala to process asylum claims.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other rights groups sued to block the rule in California on the grounds it violates U.S. law that welcomes those who come to the United States fleeing persecution at home. The asylum rule was one of a series of anti-immigration edicts issued by the Trump administration recently as it seeks to stem the flow of migrants arriving at the border with Mexico after fleeing violence and poverty in countries including Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. It has characterized the vast majority of their asylum claims as bogus.

Opponents said the United States cannot force migrants to first apply for asylum in another country unless Washington first has a "safe third country" agreement with that government, as the United States has with Canada. Both Mexico and Guatemala have resisted Trump administration efforts to reach such a deal.

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