I would note that Judge Kelly didn't rule against the asylum first country policy because he thought the policy was wrong in some sense, but because of the technical issue of not allowing sufficient time for public comment before implementation.
So if the DOJ and DHS raise the policy again, and allow public comment in a statutorial time frame, then I don't think he'd have a problem with it if the ACLU sues again.
Incompetent bureaucrats who can't read the procedures before signing off on a policy.
Either they are DS and deliberately omitted the public comment period to fuck it up, or they are newbies who don't know the procedure.
OR, they are patriots and delberately oopsed it, knowing the ACLU would sue, expending the ACLU resources (making them fire off their ammunition too early), then later, quietly reimplementing the policy with the proper public comment schedule.