Trump orders tighter asylum rules

UPDATE: The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit in federal court in San Francisco against President Donald Trump’s order limiting asylum claims to immigrants who come to the country legally. The lawsuit claims the new rules violate the law and put families in danger. As expected, the legal challenge asks the judge to stop the new rules from going into effect while the lawsuit is pending.

OUR EARLIER REPORT (12:57 p.m.): President Donald Trump on Friday ordered the government to grant asylum only to immigrants who enter the country legally. Existing law states that anyone is eligible for asylum no matter how he or she enters the country.

“The president has the broad authority to suspend or restrict the entry of aliens into the United States if he determines it to be in the national interest to do so,” Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a joint statement Thursday.

Administration officials said the measures, likely to face legal challenges, would go into effect Saturday for at least three months, but could be extended. They don’t affect people who are already in the country. “We need people in our country but they have to come in legally and they have to have merit,” Trump said Friday.

About 500 members of a caravan of Central American migrants left Mexico City on Friday to continue their trek to the U.S. southern border. Some of the travelers said they were headed to the border crossing between Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego, Calif. Thousands more migrants are expected to follow Saturday. Mexico has offered refuge, asylum, or work visas to people in the caravan, and its government said 2,697 temporary visas had been issued to individuals and families to cover them while they wait for the 45-day application process for a more permanent status.