ACLU sues Biden administration over new asylum rule

A bunch of immigrant advocacy organizations sued the Biden administration Wednesday over its executive action limiting asylum processing final week.

The American Civil Liberties Union and others filed the lawsuit on behalf of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Heart and the Refugee and Immigrant Heart for Training and Authorized Companies.

In a criticism filed in federal court docket in Washington, D.C., attorneys for the teams argued that President Joe Biden’s latest government motion briefly limiting asylum processing violated a statute enacted by Congress, which permits migrants to use for asylum “whether or not or not” they enter at ports of entry.

Whereas Congress has positioned some limitations on the fitting to hunt asylum over time, it has by no means permitted the Govt Department to categorically ban asylum based mostly on the place a noncitizen enters the nation,” the lawsuit says.

“That plain statutory textual content precludes the President and the Govt Department from barring noncitizens from asylum based mostly on their method of entry into the US,” it continues.

Biden issued an executive action final week briefly limiting asylum processing as soon as there has a seven-consecutive-calendar-day common of two,500 encounters or extra. The motion went into impact instantly, as a result of each day encounters have been hitting a each day common of more than 4,000, in response to homeland safety officers. According to the action, the border would reopen 14 days after the homeland safety secretary determines that there have been seven consecutive days averaging fewer than 1,500 each day encounters between ports of entry.

Some exceptions are permitted, together with for unaccompanied youngsters.

Lee Gelernt, the deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Undertaking, who argued the problem to the Trump administration’s asylum ban, had previewed the group’s plans to sue shortly after Biden introduced the motion final week.

“We have been left with no different however to sue,” Gelernt said in a statement Wednesday. “The administration lacks unilateral authority to override Congress and bar asylum based mostly on how one enters the nation, some extent the courts made crystal clear when the Trump administration unsuccessfully tried a near-identical ban.”

White Home assistant press secretary Angelo Fernández Hernández mentioned the administration took motion “as a result of border encounters stay too excessive.”

“The Administration will proceed to implement our immigration legal guidelines — these with out a authorized foundation to stay in the US will probably be eliminated. We might refer you to the Division of Justice for questions relating to the litigation,” Hernández mentioned in an announcement Wednesday.

A spokesperson for the Division of Homeland Safety mentioned the division can’t touch upon pending litigation.

“The Securing the Border rule is lawful, is crucial to strengthening border safety, and is already having an affect. The challenged actions stay in impact, and we are going to proceed to implement them,” Naree Ketudat, the DHS spokesperson, mentioned in an announcement. “Noncitizens with out authorization mustn’t come to our southern border. There are severe penalties for crossing unlawfully.”

Biden took the motion by invoking provisions within the Immigration and Nationality Act, together with 212(f), which supplies the president authority to droop entry to some migrants in case their entry is deemed “detrimental to the pursuits of the US.”

Below the identical provision, the Trump administration tried to enact an asylum ban in 2018, which was blocked by the courts.

There have been 179,725 encounters alongside the southern border in April, a slight lower from latest months, according to U.S. Customs and Border Safety. Over 1.5 million encounters have been recorded this fiscal 12 months up to now, which means fiscal 12 months 2024 has up to now outpaced fiscal years 2023, 2022 and 2021 in encounters, in response to the info.

This text was initially printed on NBCNews.com

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