A federal judge in San Francisco on Wednesday issued a nationwide injunction blocking a Trump Administration rule that barred asylum for migrants who failed to apply for protection in a country they transited through to reach the U.S.—a policy directed at stemming the tide of Central American migrants coming to the country through Mexico.

In a 45-page order issued Wednesday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar of the Northern District of California found that the rule is “is inconsistent with the existing asylum laws” passed by Congress. 

In particular, the judge found that the rule runs counter to Congressional moves to ensure that the U.S. only will remove an asylum seeker to a third country if that country would be safe for the applicant and provide equivalent temporary protections. 

Here, Tigar wrote the government's own evidence “affirmatively demonstrates that asylum claimants removed to Mexico are likely to be (1) exposed to violence and abuse from third parties and government officials; (2) denied their rights under Mexican and international law, and (3) wrongly returned to countries from which they fled persecution.”

Tigar's decision blocking the new rule runs counter to a decision issued earlier Wednesday by a judge in Washington, D.C., who declined a similar request to block the new rule. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly of the District of Columbia issued a bench order Wednesday denying a request for a temporary restraining order from the Capital Area Immigrants' Rights Coalition and Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, which are represented by a team from Hogan Lovells. Tigar's ruling is a win for lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center's Immigrant Justice Project, which sued to block the new restrictions shortly after they were announced earlier this month on behalf of advocacy groups East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, Al Otro Lado, Innovation Law Lab and Central American Resource Center in Los Angeles.

“The court recognized, as it did with the first asylum ban, that the Trump administration was attempting an unlawful end run around asylum protections enacted by Congress,” said ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, who argued for the plaintiffs at Wednesday's hearing, in a statement.

At the hearing Wednesday morning in the California case, Tigar stopped the court proceedings briefly when a member of the public hissed after a Justice Department lawyer mentioned Kelly's ruling. Tigar urged the audience member to “respect the dignity of the proceedings” and defended Kelly.

“I'm sure he's given this matter as much thought as I have,” Tigar said. The judge later added: “My point is that these are two district courts both trying to do their best work on an issue of national importance.”

The case marks the second time these plaintiffs and Justice Department lawyers have squared off in Tigar's courtroom over a challenge to Trump's moves to reform the asylum process. Tigar last year blocked the administration's move to limit asylum to only those entering the country through an official port of entry. 

Tigar's earlier ruling prompted a public complaint from the president himself, who railed last year about his administration's record in the “Ninth Circuit” before calling Tigar an “Obama judge.” The president's remarks prompted a rare response from Chief Justice John Roberts who issued a statement just before Thanksgiving last year saying, “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.” 

The Ninth Circuit upheld Tigar's ruling shortly thereafter in an opinion written by Judge Jay Bybee, a George W. Bush appointee, and Roberts joined with the liberal wing of the U.S. Supreme Court in December upholding Tigar in a 5-4 ruling.

Read Judge Tigar's order: