Judge Lawrence VanDyke of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday publicly criticised the Biden administration over its approach to a current challenge to its rule restricting asylum. VanDyke accused the administration of making a “wholly political” move without legal grounds when it agreed to pause the appeal to this asylum policy amidst settlement talks with the opposing parties.
Having joined the bench only in 2020, Judge VanDyke further took issue with this standstill in the proceedings, labeling the administration’s decision as an “abrupt about-face”. He registered his disagreement via a dissent to the order that allows the appeal to be held in abeyance. This stay order tides them over amidst ongoing settlement negotiations and mandates status updates every 60 days.
For more of such high granularity details of the case, interested readers can follow through with the original report on the proceedings thus far.