Introduction

On April 24, 2026, a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed a District Court judgment holding that President Donald J. Trump’s Inauguration Day proclamation suspending asylum access at the southern border exceeds the authority Congress has granted the President under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).1 The decision in RAICES v. Noem is a significant development in a fifteen-month dispute over whether a President may, by proclamation alone, neutralize Congress’s mandatory asylum and withholding-of-removal procedures with respect to noncitizens who cross the southern border between ports of entry. The administration is widely expected to seek en banc review or to petition the Supreme Court of the United States for certiorari, and the panel’s order does not formally take effect until any rehearing process concludes.2

This article reviews the historical and statutory background of presidential entry-suspension authority, summarizes the District Court’s July 2, 2025 ruling, analyzes the panel’s reasoning on appeal, and discusses the practical implications for asylum seekers and practitioners pending further review.

Historical and Statutory Background: INA § 212(f) and Presidential Proclamation Authority

Section 212(f) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f), authorizes the President to suspend the entry of any aliens or class of aliens, or to impose conditions on entry, when he finds that such entry would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.3 The provision is broad on its face, but its scope is bounded both by its text — which speaks of entry, not removal — and by the surrounding architecture of the INA. We have published a comprehensive treatment of the scope and history of section 212(f) on the firm’s website, to which the reader is referred for additional detail.

The modern litigation history of section 212(f) is dominated by the prior travel-ban controversies. President Trump’s first-term Executive Order 13769, and the subsequent Presidential Proclamation 9645, were the subject of multiple injunctions and ultimately the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Hawaii, 138 S. Ct. 2392 (2018), which upheld the third iteration of the travel ban under a deferential rational-basis standard.4 Our analysis of Proclamation 9645 and our discussion of the concurring opinions in Trump v. Hawaii, including Justice Thomas’s reservations on universal injunctions and inherent presidential authority (see article), provide additional context.

Critically, however, the prior travel-ban cases concerned the suspension of visa issuance and entry for designated nationalities. None of them involved an attempt to use section 212(f) as a vehicle to override the asylum and withholding-of-removal provisions of INA §§ 208 and 241(b)(3) — provisions which Congress enacted in implementation of the United States’ obligations under the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees and the Convention Against Torture. The asylum statute, INA § 208(a)(1), 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(1), is unambiguous: any noncitizen who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States — regardless of status, and regardless of whether the arrival was at a designated port of entry — may apply for asylum, subject only to the narrow statutory bars enumerated in section 208(a)(2). For the firm’s full discussion of those bars, see our articles on Bars to Applying for Asylum and Bars to Eligibility for Asylum.

The January 20, 2025 Proclamation: “Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion”

On the first day of his second term, President Trump issued a proclamation entitled “Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion.”5 The proclamation declared that the conditions at the southern border constituted an “invasion” within the meaning of Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution, and invoked INA § 212(f), INA § 215(a), and the President’s asserted Article II powers to “suspend the physical entry” of noncitizens crossing the southern border outside designated ports of entry. Implementing guidance issued by the Department of Homeland Security provided that covered noncitizens would be summarily removed without referral for credible-fear screening under INA § 235(b)(1)(B) — the screening mechanism that ordinarily channels arriving noncitizens with a fear of persecution into either an asylum-only proceeding or full removal proceedings under INA § 240. For background on credible-fear screening and the expedited-removal framework that the proclamation purported to bypass, see our articles on Expedited Removal and on the Attorney General’s decision in Matter of M-S-.

In the months that followed the proclamation, asylum applications at the southern border were effectively frozen. The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, and the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project — joined by thirteen individual asylum-seekers from Afghanistan, Ecuador, Cuba, Egypt, Brazil, Turkey, and Peru — filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in February 2025, challenging the proclamation under the INA, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the Constitution.6 Six of the individual plaintiffs had already been removed by the time the litigation was filed.

The District Court Decision: RAICES v. Noem, July 2, 2025

On July 2, 2025, United States District Judge Randolph D. Moss of the District of Columbia granted summary judgment for the plaintiffs, certified a class consisting of all noncitizens who are or will be subject to the proclamation while in the United States, and entered a vacatur of the proclamation and implementing guidance to the extent they purport to override the INA’s asylum and withholding-of-removal procedures.7 Judge Moss acknowledged the considerable challenges the Executive faces in administering immigration enforcement and the substantial backlog in the asylum system, but concluded that those concerns could not authorize the President to construct a parallel removal system unmoored from the statute Congress enacted. The District Court reasoned, in substance, that the President’s enumerated powers under Articles II and IV do not provide a freestanding authority to displace the procedural protections Congress has codified, and that section 212(f) speaks only to entry, not to the removal of persons already physically present in the United States.

The Justice Department appealed. The D.C. Circuit narrowed certain aspects of the District Court’s order pending appeal but left the core injunction substantially intact during the pendency of the appellate proceedings.

The D.C. Circuit’s April 24, 2026 Decision

The panel — Circuit Judges J. Michelle Childs (writing for the majority), Cornelia T. L. Pillard (joining), and Justin R. Walker (concurring in part and dissenting in part) — issued its decision on April 24, 2026. The majority’s reasoning may be summarized in four points.

First, the panel held that section 212(f), by its plain terms, authorizes only the suspension of entry. Childs, J., wrote for the majority that the statute’s text, structure, and history demonstrate that Congress did not intend, when it conferred entry-suspension authority by proclamation, to grant the Executive the broader removal authority asserted in the proclamation.8 The panel rejected the government’s contention that Huisha-Huisha v. Mayorkas, 27 F.4th 718 (D.C. Cir. 2022) — which addressed Title 42 expulsions during the COVID-19 public health emergency — supplied a basis for the proclamation, observing that Huisha-Huisha arose under the Public Health Service Act and not under the President’s INA proclamation authority.

Second, the panel held that even if section 212(f) could plausibly bear on procedures applicable at the threshold of entry, it cannot displace the affirmative right that Congress conferred in section 208(a)(1) — the right of any noncitizen physically present in or arriving in the United States to apply for asylum. The panel reasoned that if the Executive seeks to alter the carefully calibrated statutory scheme governing asylum, it must do so by working with Congress rather than by proclamation.

Third, the panel held that the proclamation cannot override the statutory and treaty-based prohibitions on returning persons to countries where they would face persecution or torture. These protections — withholding of removal under INA § 241(b)(3) and protection under the Convention Against Torture — are mandatory in nature, not discretionary, and have been consistently recognized as such. We have addressed the procedural and substantive contours of these forms of relief in detail in our article on Applying for Withholding of Removal in Section 240 Removal Proceedings.

Fourth, on this last point, the panel was unanimous: Judge Walker, although disagreeing with the majority on remedy and on the appropriateness of class-wide injunctive relief, agreed that the President cannot deport a noncitizen to a country where he or she will face persecution and cannot strip noncitizens of the mandatory anti-removal protections that Congress and treaty obligations have provided.9 Judge Walker’s partial dissent focused principally on whether Judge Moss possessed the authority to enter a class-wide vacatur of the proclamation as opposed to relief tailored to the named plaintiffs.

Practical Implications

Several practical observations are warranted.

Status quo on the ground. The panel’s decision does not formally take effect until the court resolves any petition for rehearing. Even when it does take effect, much of the district-court injunction had already been in place during the appellate proceedings, with the consequence — as several commentators have observed — that the practical posture at the southern border may not change dramatically in the immediate term.10 Nevertheless, the appellate ruling materially strengthens the legal predicate for individual challenges by affected class members, including those who were summarily removed under the proclamation and who may now have a stronger basis for motions to reopen or for habeas relief.

Continued Supreme Court interest. A separate matter currently pending before the Supreme Court of the United States addresses the closely related question of where, geographically, a noncitizen must present an asylum claim — that is, whether a claim presented on the Mexican side of the border to a United States officer is sufficient, or whether physical presence on United States soil is required. A decision is anticipated in the coming weeks. Together with RAICES v. Noem, that decision will substantially shape the contours of asylum access at the southern border for the foreseeable future.

Implications for individual claimants. Practitioners representing individuals who were summarily removed under the proclamation, or who were channeled into procedures inconsistent with INA § 235(b)(1)(B), should evaluate whether the panel’s reasoning supports a motion to reopen, a petition for review of any final order entered under the proclamation’s procedures, or, where a client remains in immigration custody, a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. The doctrinal foundation laid by Judge Childs — namely, that the proclamation cannot displace the mandatory procedures Congress has codified — will be central to any such filing.

The 1996 framework remains intact. The decision is also a useful reminder that the asylum provisions enacted in the Refugee Act of 1980, as amended by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, retain their force notwithstanding executive action that purports to override them. The statutory framework — including the one-year filing deadline of INA § 208(a)(2)(B), the firm-resettlement and safe-third-country bars, and the procedural rights attached to credible-fear screening — continues to govern asylum adjudication in the absence of a contrary act of Congress.

Conclusion

The D.C. Circuit’s decision in RAICES v. Noem reaffirms a basic constitutional principle: the President’s authority to suspend entry by proclamation, expansive as it is in certain dimensions, does not provide a vehicle for the unilateral repeal of the asylum and anti-removal protections Congress has enacted. Whether the decision will withstand en banc or Supreme Court review remains to be seen. In the interim, however, the panel’s reasoning provides a substantial doctrinal foundation for individual challenges to removals effectuated under the proclamation, and offers practitioners a clarified framework within which to advise clients whose asylum claims have been impeded by the events of the last fifteen months.

Persons who believe they may have been affected by the January 20, 2025 proclamation, or whose asylum claims have been adversely affected by the implementing guidance, should consult with an experienced immigration attorney to evaluate available remedies. Our office regularly handles complex asylum, withholding-of-removal, and Convention Against Torture matters, including federal court litigation arising from removals effected outside the procedures Congress has prescribed.

  1. RAICES v. Noem, No. 25-5168 (D.C. Cir. Apr. 24, 2026), aff’g Civ. A. No. 25-CV-306 (D.D.C. July 2, 2025) (Moss, J.).
  2. The order of the panel does not formally issue until the court resolves any timely petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc. See Fed. R. App. P. 41(b).
  3. Immigration and Nationality Act § 212(f), 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f) (2018).
  4. Trump v. Hawaii, 138 S. Ct. 2392 (2018).
  5. Proclamation No. 10888, “Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion,” 90 Fed. Reg. 8333 (Jan. 20, 2025).
  6. Compl., RAICES v. Noem, Civ. A. No. 25-CV-306 (D.D.C. filed Feb. 2025).
  7. RAICES v. Noem, Civ. A. No. 25-CV-306 (D.D.C. July 2, 2025) (Moss, J.) (memorandum opinion granting summary judgment and certifying class).
  8. Slip op. at majority opinion (Childs, J., joined by Pillard, J.).
  9. Slip op. at partial dissent (Walker, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
  10. See, e.g., Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, Senior Fellow, American Immigration Council (observing that prior litigation had already paused implementation of the proclamation in significant respects).