East Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. Barr — U.S. District Court, N.D. Cal.

Case summary

Four organisations — East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, Al Otro Lado, Innovation Law Lab and the Central American Resource Center in Los Angeles — filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief on July 16, 2019 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, No. 19-cv-04073-JST, against the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security and their departments and agencies. The complaint challenges an interim final rule and final rule denying asylum to most people who crossed the border between ports of entry or who did not first seek and be denied protection in a third country they transited. On April 8, 2021 the Ninth Circuit issued an amended opinion affirming the district court's preliminary injunction against enforcement of the rule in the four border states. The district court stayed the case in June 2022 pending the government's rulemaking review.

Case at a glance

What did the Ninth Circuit decide?

It denied rehearing en banc and issued an amended opinion affirming the district court's grant of a preliminary injunction against enforcement, in the four states on the United States-Mexico border, of the joint interim final rule that categorically denies asylum to people arriving at the border with Mexico unless they first applied for and were denied protection elsewhere.

What does the complaint allege?

That Congress provided in the Immigration and Nationality Act that a noncitizen is ineligible for asylum only if firmly resettled in another country before arriving, and that merely transiting through a third country is not a basis to categorically deny asylum.

What is the status?

Stayed. The order of December 13, 2023 records that the stay was granted on June 24, 2022 pending the government's rulemaking review, that the parties last filed a status report on February 23, 2023, and gives the parties time to file a statement of non-opposition or an opposition explaining why the case should not be stayed.

Summary written from the documents on this page; every sentence is sourced.