The American Civil Liberties Union led numerous advocacy groups in filing a lawsuit Wednesday to fight against the asylum ban presented by the Trump administration.
What We Know:
- The organization is stating that the new asylum ban violates the Immigration and Nationality Act as well as federal laws governing administrative procedure.
- The rule stated that migrants who pass through another country must first seek asylum there rather than at the U.S. border (where they will be found ineligible).
- The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the nonprofit groups that provide assistance to asylum seekers (including the Southern Poverty Law Center and Center for Constitutional Rights), as well as seeking a permanent ban on the “unlawful and invalid” rule.
- The lawsuit claims that the rule “directly violates Congress’s clear requirement” that non-citizens must be “firmly resettled” in a third country as well as the federal law requiring “that asylum cannot be categorically denied based on an asylum seeker’s route to the United States.”
- While the rule has exceptions for those seen as victims of severe trafficking as well as those denied asylum in another third-world country, it is still being seen as unjust to numerous citizens.
- ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt stated in his announcement of the lawsuit that “this is the Trump administration’s most extreme run at an asylum ban yet…It clearly violates domestic and international law, and cannot stand.”
Hopefully, justice wins.
