Courts give conflicting orders on asylum limits at border

By ELLIOT SPAGAT
Associated Press

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A federal appeals court has upheld sweeping asylum restrictions to prevent spread of COVID-19 but restored protections to keep migrant families from being expelled to their home countries without a chance to plead their cases. Almost simultaneously, a federal judge in another case ruled Friday that unaccompanied children are wrongly exempted from the restrictions. The conflicting decisions inject legal uncertainty into the future of rules that deny migrants a chance to seek asylum on grounds that it risks spreading COVID-19. Authorities have expelled migrants more than 1.6 million times at the Mexican border without a chance to seek humanitarian protections.