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President Donald Trump speaks as he signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
A federal judge in Arizona says President Donald Trump is overstepping his authority by attempting to block immigrants from seeking asylum in the United States, ruling earlier this month that the attempted deportation of an Iranian woman who was barred from making a claim was “unlawfully” carried out.
“By granting the president broad power to restrict entry into the United States, Congress did not grant the president any power to restrict an alien’s right to request asylum,” wrote U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow in a May 14 order, granting a preliminary injunction to block the U.S. from deporting Fatemeh Tabatabaeifar, 22, without a “complete assessment of her asylum claim, including a credible fear determination and an immigration judge’s review.”
Tabatabaeifar was detained in Arizona just north of the Mexico border in February, and says she would “rather die in jail in the U.S. than go back to Iran,” according to her attorney Taher Kameli, who spoke to the Arizona Republic this week.
“She is a young girl,” Kameli said. “She’s no danger to anyone. She just wanted to take refuge in the United States to escape from persecution in Iran.”
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According to Snow, a George W. Bush appointee, Tabatabaeifar made an asylum claim and was then assessed under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). An officer with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) found on March 21 that Tabatabaeifar “failed to establish that it was more likely than not that she would be tortured if she returned to Iran,” according to Snow, which led to Tabatabaeifar asking for an immigration judge to review her negative CAT assessment. The government never gave her one and instead moved to file paperwork for her deportation, per Kameli.
“As petitioner [Tabatabaeifar] has shown that respondents may deport her imminently, and her deportation would prevent her from pursuing her asylum claim, petitioner has sufficiently shown a likelihood of irreparable harm,” Snow determined.
The ruling comes as the Trump administration continues to deal with lawsuits and other decisions related to allegations of civil rights violations and court mandates being ignored in immigration cases and other legal battles related to Trump’s presidency.
On Tuesday, the Justice Department took yet another legal battle to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to lift a federal judge’s order that blocked the government from shipping off migrants to countries they have no ties to, claiming the order is “wreaking havoc” on the president’s deportation plans. Immigration advocacy groups, including the National Immigration Litigation Alliance and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, are suing the Trump administration in a class action lawsuit over third-country removals.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, a Joe Biden appointee, barred the government from moving forward with the deportations in a sharply worded 48-page memorandum and order in April.
A federal judge in Massachusetts said last week that the Trump administration had “unquestionably” violated his order by deporting a group of migrants to South Sudan — a country from which none of the migrants originate — without due process or a reasonable opportunity to raise concerns of their fear of the war-torn nation, an action they said could amount to criminal contempt of court.
Attorneys representing Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was deported to El Salvador despite his protected status, have accused the Trump administration of defying a federal judge and the Supreme Court by refusing to provide any information regarding what has been done to “facilitate” his return to the U.S. after he was shipped off in March. Abrego Garcia’s case stems from the government’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 (AEA), a wartime authority previously invoked only three times, the last of which was during World War II.
Tabatabaeifar filed a motion for an injunction in April, arguing that Trump did not have the right to try and take away her ability to seek asylum once she was in the U.S. The government has said the move is legal under Article IV of the Constitution and an executive order titled “Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion.” Trump issued the executive order after taking office on Jan. 20.
“Because Congress has expressly authorized anyone physically present in the United States, including Petitioner, to make an asylum claim, it seems difficult to conclude that Petitioner is an ‘invader’ under Article IV,” Snow said.
