President Donald Trump's authority is "limited by statute" that protects asylum seekers, and if he doesn't like the rule, he should try to get Congress to change it, Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Tuesday, a day after a federal judge stopped the Trump administration from blocking asylum to people illegally entering the United States.
"I think he has the better of the argument, the judge does, on the statutory interpretation," Dershowitz told Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "There is nothing in the statute that suggests that the president has the authority to overrule Congress...you have to look at the statute. The president's authority is not a constitutional authority. It is limited by statute."
Trump issued the ban on Nov. 9, saying it was necessary to stop a national security threat posed by thousands of migrants heading in a caravan to the U.S.-Mexico border. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, agreed with legal groups that U.S. law protects asylum seekers.
Trump had invoked the same powers he used last year to impose a travel ban the Supreme Court upheld, but Dershowitz said Tuesday that the rules about asylum seekers are different.
"The president has constitutional authority to decide people can't come in from particular countries," said Dershowitz, "but there is no comparable provision in the asylum statute authorizing the president to make decisions changing the nature of asylum."
He also said it was the right judicial decision for Tigar to get a temporary injunction, but noted the final decision could "get all the way up to the higher courts."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.