ACLU and migrant rights groups sue over Biden’s asylum crackdown

The American Civil Liberties Union and several migrant rights groups filed a lawsuit Wednesday targeting recently announced President Biden asylum repression on the US-Mexico border, challenging the legality of its restrictive change in immigration policy just a week after it was enacted.

O 29-page process It is the first legal action against Biden’s attempt to use sweeping presidential authority to disqualify most migrants from asylum and make it easier for U.S. immigration authorities to deport them. The partial ban on asylum applications came into force a week ago and will remain in effect until the weekly average of daily illegal border crossings falls below 1,500 – a level not recorded since 2020.

Lawyers for the ACLU asked the federal district court in Washington, D.C., to strike down the regulations that implemented Biden’s order, arguing that they violate U.S. asylum law and federal policymaking rules. The civil rights group, however, did not ask the court to immediately block the regulations, which were published by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security.

The ACLU convinced federal courts to lift a 2018 Trump administration asylum restriction that relied on the same legal authority, known as 212(f).

“We had no choice but to file this lawsuit. The ban will put countless people at risk and is legally identical to the Trump ban that we successfully blocked,” Lee Gelernt, the lead ACLU attorney behind the lawsuit, told CBS News .

In a proclamation last week, Biden invoked 212(f) authority to suspend entry of most migrants along the southern border, authorizing authorities to bar asylum from migrants if they illegally cross between official ports of entry. Migrants who make one of the 1,450 daily appointments to enter the U.S. at ports of entry are still eligible to apply for asylum.

Biden’s move allowed US immigration authorities to more quickly deport a greater number of migrants since they are unable to seek asylum. Only those who affirmatively say they fear returning to their home country are assessed against other legal protections that are much more difficult to obtain and that do not guarantee a permanent safe haven, unlike asylum.

Still, the impact of Biden’s latest border measure has had a more limited impact on migrants from distant countries like China, where the U.S. does not carry out regular deportations due to diplomatic issues or logistical hurdles. Mexico only accepts its own citizens and migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

In its lawsuit, the ACLU challenged the suspension of asylum between ports of entry, citing a provision in federal law that says migrants who set foot on American soil “whether or not at a designated port of arrival” can seek asylum. Furthermore, it sued over the requirement that migrants affirmatively express fear of being tracked, and the strengthened screening standards that asylum officers were instructed to employ under Mr. Trump’s measure.

The civil rights organization also challenged another measure announced last week that reduced the time migrants in custody at the U.S. border have to consult with lawyers before asylum exams from 24 hours to 4 hours.

Wednesday’s lawsuit was not surprising. Virtually every major action taken by Biden on immigration has faced lawsuits. Republican-led states have challenged Biden’s rollbacks of Trump-era immigration policies and programs that make it easier for migrants to enter legally, while advocacy groups like the ACLU have sued over his more restrictive border policies.

In one case, the ACLU and Republican-led states challenged the same policy: A rule that presumes migrants are ineligible for asylum if they do not use legal options to enter the U.S. and are unable to seek refuge in other countries. The ACLU has argued that the rule violates the rights of asylum seekers, while state GOP officials have complained that it contains too many exceptions.