A coalition of immigrants’ rights groups Tuesday made good on a vow to sue the Biden administration over the president’s recent executive actions that severely restrict asylum to migrants who cross the border illegally.
Biden’s controversial actions, which he signed on June 4, make most of these migrants ineligible for asylum. The new rules also fast-track deportations for people who cross illegally and do not meet new, tougher legal thresholds regarding credible fear of persecution.
“We were left with no alternative but to sue,” Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrant Rights’ Project wrote in a statement. “The administration lacks unilateral authority to override Congress and bar asylum based on how one enters the country.”
Their lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C., argues that Biden’s asylum ban is inconsistent with existing law — specifically Section 208 of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act. That law gives anyone in the United States the right to apply for asylum regardless of how they entered the country.
Biden’s executive actions are “flatly contrary to the law,” said Melissa Crow, director of litigation at the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies.
Existing asylum laws recognize that legitimate asylum seekers face inherently dangerous circumstances, which is why humanitarian protection is available to people who cross the border without proper documentation, she added.
“People seeking asylum don’t generally come here because they want to,” Crow said. “They come here because they have to. Because they’re scared, because they’ve been harmed in the past, because their lives and the lives of their family members are in great jeopardy.”
Parties to the lawsuit also include the National Immigration Justice Center and the Texas Civil Rights Project. They are asking the federal court to promptly strike down Biden’s new asylum rules.
Immigrants’ rights advocates argue that restricting access to asylum will put already vulnerable migrants in even greater risk of violence in their country of origin or in Mexican border towns with heavy cartel presence.
When he announced the actions, Biden said they were necessary after Republicans obstructed a bipartisan immigration bill earlier this year.
“This action will help us gain control of our border, restore order to the process,” he said.
Meanwhile, Republicans criticized Biden’s new rules as not going far enough. They also attacked the president for rolling back Trump-era immigration restrictions.
The rules are meant to encourage migrants to use existing legal pathways to request asylum; specifically the CBP One mobile app that people can use to schedule appointments to enter the United States.
However, critics point out that CBP One only schedules 1,450 appointments per day, and demand is so high that it takes some migrants up to eight or nine months to secure appointments.
“By limiting the number of people who can claim asylum, people are forced to compete for the few appointments available each day in the CBP One App, which is riddled with glitches and is itself a barrier to seeking asylum,” Tami Goodlette, director of the Beyond Borders Program at the Texas Civil Rights Project wrote in a statement.
