Immigration advocacy organizations filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Monday, claiming that the broad limits unlawfully put individuals escaping persecution and conflict in danger due to the ban on asylum access at the southern border.
The organizations, lead by the American Civil Liberties Union, claimed in the case, which was submitted to a federal court in Washington, that the ruling included in one of President Donald Trump’s executive orders pertaining to immigration is “as unlawful as it is unprecedented.”
“The government is doing just what Congress by statute decreed that the United States must not do. It is returning asylum seekers — not just single adults, but families too — to countries where they face persecution or torture, without allowing them to invoke the protections Congress has provided,” according to the lawyers.
On behalf of the Florence Project in Arizona, the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso, and RAICES in Texas, the ACLU and other organizations filed the complaint.
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security stated that it does not comment on proposed legislation. The president’s actions were justified by the White House.
“President Trump was given a resounding mandate to end the disregard and abuse of our immigration laws and secure our borders. The Trump administration will continue to put Americans and America First,” White House spokesman Kush Desai stated.
The southern border scenario is an invasion of America, Trump said in an executive order, and he is “suspending the physical entry” of migrants until he makes a decision.
Additionally, the executive order prohibited migrants from requesting asylum.
The Immigration and Nationality Act grants presidents the power to bar entrance for any group deemed “detrimental to the interests of the United States,” according to Trump’s executive order.
The Biden administration significantly reduced the eligibility of those who entered the nation between the official border crossings for asylum, which was the most recent setback to asylum access.
However, they also created a mechanism that allowed 1,450 people every day to make an appointment at a Mexican border crossing in order to request protection in the United States.
On his first day in office, Trump terminated that program as part of a broader plan to lock out immigration access at the southern border, reverse policies of former President Joe Biden that provided some immigration pathways and protections, and carry out mass deportations of immigrants in the nation illegally.
Proponents assert that the nation’s immigration legislation guarantees the right to apply for asylum and that depriving migrants of this right puts those escaping persecution or conflict in severe danger.
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Relatively few people who come to America seeking asylum genuinely qualify, according to critics, and it takes years for overburdened immigration courts to rule on such requests.
Individuals who apply for asylum must show that they fear being persecuted on relatively specific grounds, such as race, religion, nationality, or membership in a specific social or political group.
As the number of persons entering the country between the ports of entry has dropped to levels not seen before August 2020, the groups contended in the lawsuit that immigration, “even at elevated levels,” does not amount to an invasion.
The ACLU’s lead attorney, Lee Gelernt, who has argued in many of the major asylum-related cases over the past two administrations, said, “The proclamation makes the sham claim of an invasion to justify wiping away all means of seeking asylum, with no regard for the fact that Congress has taken pains over four plus decades to create a safe haven for those fleeing danger. No President, including President Trump during his first Term, has ever claimed the power to unilaterally eliminate asylum.”
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Trump’s proclamation, according to the groups, was a “extreme example of presidential overreach.”
They said that the government is “summarily expelling noncitizens” — frequently within a few hours — without providing them with the chance to call or petition for asylum or other legal protections to which they are lawfully entitled.
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