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ACLU Sues Trump Over Southern Border Asylum Shut Down

Crime and Justice News

Immigration advocacy groups on Monday sued the Trump administration over its ban on asylum access at the southern border, saying the sweeping restrictions illegally put people who are fleeing war and persecution in harm’s way. The decision outlined in one of President Donald Trump’s immigration-related executive orders is “as unlawful as it is unprecedented,” the groups — led by the American Civil Liberties Union — said in the complaint, filed in a Washington federal court, the Associated Press reports. “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,” lawyers wrote. The ACLU and other groups filed the complaint on behalf of Arizona-based Florence Project, El Paso-based Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and Texas-based RAICES.


The White House seemed unworried about the suit. “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,” said White House spokesman Kush Desai. In an executive order, Trump had declared that the situation at the southern border constitutes an invasion of America and that he was “suspending the physical entry” of migrants until he decides it’s over. The executive order also suspended the ability of migrants to ask for asylum. In the order, Trump argued that the Immigration and Nationality Act gives presidents the authority to suspend entry of any group that they finds “detrimental to the interests of the United States.” Advocates say the right to request asylum is enshrined in the country’s immigration law and that denying migrants that right puts people fleeing war or persecution in grave danger. Critics have said relatively few people coming to America seeking asylum actually end up qualifying and that it takes years for overloaded immigration courts to come to a determination on such requests. People seeking asylum must demonstrate a fear of persecution on a fairly narrow grounds of race, religion, nationality, or by belonging to a particular social or political group.

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A daily report co-sponsored by Arizona State University, Criminal Justice Journalists, and the National Criminal Justice Association

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