Immigrant advocates implored a federal judge in San Francisco on Monday to restore his nationwide order allowing migrants fleeing Central America to seek asylum in the United States, days after an appeals court let the Trump administration enforce a ban on virtually all such applicants in much of the United States.

The administration’s policy, which took effect July 16, barred asylum for anyone who had passed through another country on the way to the United States without first seeking asylum there. Exempting only victims of human trafficking, the new rules effectively excluded applicants from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, nations with some of the world’s highest homicide rates.

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When that issue arises in other asylum cases, “typically the law that governs is the law of the place where the ‘credible fear’ interview happens,” said Stanford law Professor Jayashri Srikantiah. She was referring to the first-stage hearing where an immigration judge decides whether a migrant has a “credible fear” of being targeted for persecution if deported, a hearing that might take place far from the site of entry.