WASHINGTON (States Newsroom) — The American Civil Liberties Union, along with immigration legal aid groups, Monday filed the first major lawsuit against the Trump administration’s proclamation of an “invasion” at the southern border to justify expelling migrants and preventing them from claiming asylum.
“This is an unprecedented power grab that will put countless lives in danger,” Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement. “No president has the authority to unilaterally override the protections Congress has afforded those fleeing danger.”
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, argues that President Donald Trump’s 212(f) proclamation circumvents asylum protections for migrants already on U.S. soil that are granted by Congress.
That includes expelling asylum seekers to countries where they would face harm, which the suit argues “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 suit. “Indeed, the Proclamation does not even exempt unaccompanied children, despite the specific protections such children receive by statute.”
Suspending entry
The section Trump cited in his proclamation, section 212(f), is under the Immigration and Nationality Act. Under that section, the president has the authority to “suspend the entry” of people without legal status into the country under certain circumstances. It was one of severalimmigration-related executive orders that Trump signed on his Inauguration Day to kick-start his immigration crackdown.
Trump used that same authority during his first term to justify the so-called Muslim ban to bar the entry of people from seven predominantly Muslim countries, even those with legal immigration statuses. The move was eventually struck down, but after several revisions, the U.S. Supreme Court eventually upheld the travel ban in 2018.
In the Jan. 20 proclamation, Trump characterized asylum seekers seeking entry to the U.S.-Mexico border as an “invasion” and said that the states need “protection,” so the White House will suspend physical entry until the president deems the “invasion” over. Encounters at the southern border have been the lowest in several years.
Rapid deportations
The suit argues that the removal of migrants without legal status on U.S. soil “are occurring extraordinarily quickly—often within hours—for individuals who can be flown on military jets to Mexico or their home country directly from the border.”
The suit also argues that the proclamation harms the legal aid work of the plaintiffs, which include the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and the Florence Immigrant And Refugee Rights Project.
According to the suit, migrants have been told by immigration officials “that asylum ‘does not exist,’ have witnessed materials about the asylum process being torn from facility walls” by those officials and have been expelled “without being offered a chance to make a phone call to anyone, much less an attorney.”
The ACLU, National Immigrant Justice Center, Texas Civil Rights Project, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, ACLU of the District of Columbia and ACLU of Texas filed on behalf of those legal aid groups.
