IMMIGRANTS’ RIGHTS ADVOCATES SUE GOVERNMENT OVER ASYLUM LAW CHANGES THAT PUT IMMIGRANTS’ LIVES AT RISK

East County Magazine

Photo, left: immigrants in Jacumba, CA, where some told aid workers they were barred from asking for asylum.

June 25, 2023 (Washington D.C.) -- The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of the District of Columbia, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies and National Immigrant Justice Center this week sued the Biden administration over its sweeping and restrictive changes to asylum policies.

Those policies have sharply reduced the number of people coming across the international border seeking asylum and have expedited deportations of border-crossers, without first determining whether they meet international requirements for asylum, such as fleeing persecution or violence.

The suit was filed on behalf of individual asylum seekers, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services.

The lawsuit focuses on changes to a rapid deportation process that dramatically alter the screening interview process for asylum seekers and “wrongfully return many back to persecution and grave danger,” according to an ACLU press release.

The Biden administration requires most applicants to apply for asylum through a phone app before entering the U.S.  But the app is only available in three languages and some asylum seekers don’t have a cell phone or access to the app. Anyone who enters illegally is subject to deportation and barred from reentering the U.S. for years, without a hearing to determine if they have a credible fear claim.

This case complements an ongoing challenge to the Biden asylum ban litigated by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Northern California, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, and National Immigrant Justice Center.

The new suit homes in on the ban’s changes to the expedited removal process, which plaintiffs contend flout existing legal mandates.

Congress took critical steps to ensure that rapid deportations would not wrongfully return people to potential persecution. In particular, Congress established the “credible fear interview” to ensure that people with potentially meritorious claims for asylum would be protected from wrongful removal and allowed to fully develop and present their asylum claims.

The lawsuit charges that the new ban’s procedures illegally upend this system by requiring asylum seekers to prove — during the initial interview, under a much higher standard than Congress mandated — that the ban doesn’t apply to them.

“Asylum seekers cannot be pushed out of the country without a fair chance to make their claims for protection before a judge. Not only are these new policies cruel, they are illegal under our asylum laws,” said Katrina Eiland, managing attorney of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.

In addition, the Biden administration has made numerous other potentially harmful changes to the expedited removal process, further undermining protections for noncitizens and increasing the risk they will be removed to persecution or even torture, the plaintiffs allege.

“The Biden administration’s policies force people fleeing persecution to run a gauntlet of illegal obstacles designed to prevent them from accessing protection,” said Melissa Crow, director of litigation at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies. “These policies make a mockery of our asylum laws and imperil the lives of vulnerable families and adults seeking safety.”

“The Biden administration’s asylum rule blocks significant numbers of migrants from access to the U.S. asylum system and ignores long-standing laws, established by Congress, about what they must prove in order to have an opportunity to apply for protection,” said Keren Zwick, director of litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center. “Multiple plaintiffs are now back in Mexico, and others have already been returned to their home countries. All of the plaintiffs fear for their lives and the U.S. government has abandoned its legal obligations to protect refugees. Not only are the plaintiffs’ lives at stake, but so is the fate of U.S. asylum laws that have been in place for decades.”

“The previous administration tried to build a physical wall at the border, and now the current administration is trying to build a procedural wall at the border. Both are unlawful,” said Arthur Spitzer, senior counsel of the ACLU of the District of Columbia.

This latest lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. 

View the complaint: https://www.aclu.org/documents/complaint-ma-v-mayorkas and statement: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/immigrants-rights-advocates-sue-government-over-asylum-ban-and-rapid-deportation-process-that-places-asylum-seekers-in-grave-danger