By Mariah Timms and Michelle Hackman

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked President Trump's executive order banning people who cross the southern border illegally from seeking asylum, a decision that, should it stand, could threaten the unprecedented decline in crossings that have resulted from the administration's immigration crackdown.

U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington ruled that Trump's order overstepped the president's authority, since existing law allows foreigners to ask for asylum no matter how they entered the country.

Moss granted a block against implementing the order and certified a class of protected migrants, including those subject to the executive order who are already in the country.

He wrote that nothing in the current law or Constitution "grants the President or his delegees the sweeping authority asserted in the Proclamation and implementing guidance. An appeal to necessity cannot fill that void."

Moss stayed his order for 14 days to allow the government to appeal.

The executive order, signed on Inauguration Day, was the centerpiece of a campaign promise to shut the U.S. border to illegal immigration early in Trump's second term. Trump has also sent thousands of active duty troops to the border as a deterrent and cut off several paths to legal migration, including a program known as CBP One, which migrants used to make appointments to ask for asylum.

Border crossings, which had already fallen in the final year of the Biden administration, have declined even more sharply during the first months of Trump's second term. In June, there were just 6,000 arrests at the border, a record low.

The White House called Wednesday's ruling an "attack on the Constitution."

"A local district court judge has no authority to stop President Trump and the United States from securing our border from the flood of aliens trying to enter illegally," said Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman.

Voiding the executive order could act as a powerful draw for migrants to once again start crossing the border illegally or making asylum claims at ports of entry, which Trump also halted. Tens of thousands of migrants have been stranded in Mexico since Trump took office -- they can't return home but also recognize that trying the U.S. has grown much more difficult.

"The decision doesn't mean people automatically get to stay here but it does restore our solemn promise made after WWII that we would never again send people back to danger without at least a screening," said Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who argued the case.

Wednesday's order came in a case filed in early February by a group of immigrants rights organizations and 13 migrants who said they were fleeing persecution in countries including Afghanistan, Ecuador, Cuba, Egypt, Brazil, Turkey and Peru.

They argued the executive branch didn't have the authority to modify the procedures for removing asylum seekers under existing immigration laws passed by Congress, including provisions against torture. They asked the court to block implementation of the order.

The executive order framed unauthorized border crossings as an "invasion." In his ruling, Moss, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, acknowledged the policy challenges.

"The Court recognizes that the Executive Branch faces enormous challenges in preventing and deterring unlawful entry into the United States and in adjudicating the overwhelming backlog of asylum claims of those who have entered the country," Moss wrote.

The U.S. Supreme Court last month limited the ability of federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions, though it left open the possibility that judges could do so in class actions for a group of individuals in similar situations.

Moss's decision certified a class of asylum seekers in the country and those planning to enter, and blocked the executive order from being applied to them. He stopped short of ruling on what protections were due to people who might have already been deported while the order was in effect.

Write to Mariah Timms at mariah.timms@wsj.com and Michelle Hackman at michelle.hackman@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 02, 2025 16:45 ET (20:45 GMT)

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