WASHINGTON (TIP): Attorney General Merrick B. Garland reversed on Wednesday, June 16, Trump-era immigration rulings that had made it all but impossible for people to seek asylum in the United States over credible fears of domestic abuse or gang violence, marking one of the Justice Department’s most significant breaks with the previous administration, says a New York Times report. His decisions came in closely watched cases where his predecessors, the former attorneys general Jeff Sessions and William P. Barr, broke with precedent to overturn decisions by immigration appeals judges that would have allowed such asylum claims.

The decisions — applicable to all cases in the system, including appeals — will affect tens of thousands of migrants. Hundreds of thousands of Central Americans fleeing gang extortion and recruitment and women fleeing domestic abuse have arrived in the United States since 2013, and many cases are still being adjudicated, given an enormous backlog in immigration courts.

In vacating the Trump administration’s stance, Mr. Garland said that the Justice Department should follow the earlier precedent.

In a closely watched case known as A-B for the initials of the woman seeking asylum. The department’s Board of Immigration Appeals found in 2016 that she was part of a particular social group, saying that the government of El Salvador does little to protect people in violent relationships. That assessment qualified the woman for asylum, but Mr. Sessions overruled the appeals board.

Attorneys general can overturn decisions made by immigration judges because immigration courts are housed under the Justice Department, not the judicial branch.

The move is one of the Justice Department’s most significant reversals of a Trump-era policy. Earlier it defended the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, a position that officials had abandoned during the previous administration. The department also sided with unions in a case that could affect restrictions on organizing workers.

Proponents of asylum seekers cheered Mr. Garland’s latest reversal.

“We’re really heartened by this decision,” said Karen Musalo, a lawyer representing one of the asylum seekers and a professor at the University of California, Hastings College of Law. “It restores the possibility of protection to those whose very lives are in the balance.”

Mr. Garland has also continued some Trump administration policies and case positions, prompting some Democrats to criticize him as overly cautious.

Mr. Garland has defended those moves, saying that it was important to uphold Trump-era positions on cases if they reflected an impartial reading of the law.

(Source: New York Times)