Texas v. Mayorkas (TX Asylum Ban) - Court of Appeals

This is an appeal by Texas of an August 2024 decision by Chief Judge Moses of the Western District of Texas holding that the State lacks standing to challenge a May 2023 regulation issued by the Biden Administration. The convoluted rule makes non-Mexican asylum seekers at the southern border presumptively ineligible for asylum in the United States, subject to narrow, tightly restricted exceptions. The regulation (frequently referred to as the Biden “Asylum Ban”) is largely modeled on unlawful, anti-asylum policies first created by the Trump Administration, and it has been challenged by immigrants’ rights advocates. Texas, complains that one of the Asylum Ban’s narrow exceptions is unlawful: those asylum seekers to whom CBP gives a scheduled appointment to present themselves at a port of entry are allowed to apply for asylum (as is their legal right under U.S. immigration law). Only some migrants are even permitted to request such an appointment, which requires using the (quite problematic) CBP One smartphone application. Texas claims that the Asylum Ban did not go through required procedures and that the CBP One-based exception violates immigration law because it allegedly “encourages and incentives” migrants “to cross the border unlawfully.” 

Texas’s opening brief on appeal is due on November 20, 2024.