ACLU, immigration advocates sue Trump over U.S.-Mexico asylum restrictions

A leading U.S. civil rights group on Monday filed a lawsuit targeting U.S. President Donald Trump's sweeping ban on asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, saying the restrictions effectively block all access to asylum for migrants at the border in violation of U.S. laws and international treaties.

The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), challenges a ban issued by Trump after taking office on Jan. 20 that blocks all migrants "engaged in the invasion across the southern border" from claiming asylum or other humanitarian protections.

That decision is "as unlawful as it is unprecedented," the groups — led by the ACLU — say in the complaint, filed in a Washington federal court. 

"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 complaint was filed on behalf of the Arizona-based Florence Project, the El Paso-based Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and Texas-based RAICES. 

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that it does not comment on impending legislation.

Trump, a Republican, has taken an array of executive actions to deter illegal immigration and ramp up arrests and deportations of migrants in the U.S. illegally.

'Countless families will be in danger'

The actions include sending additional U.S. military troops to the border and directing other federal agencies to assist immigration enforcement. Trump's ban on asylum at the border goes further than restrictions put in place by former president Joe Biden in June to discourage illegal crossings.

Biden's restrictions were coupled with a legal entry program that allowed 1,450 migrants per day to schedule appointments at a legal border crossing to request asylum, an initiative that Trump ended hours after taking office.

The Biden restrictions remain in place and are subject to a separate ACLU legal challenge.

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.

Lee Gelernt, an ACLU attorney who has litigated other prominent asylum cases, says Trump's ban was unprecedented.

"It eliminates all avenues to seek asylum, completely ignoring the statutory system created by Congress," Gelernt said in a statement.

"Countless families will be in danger based on the pretence that we are under an invasion by desperate immigrants."

Critics have said relatively few people coming to the U.S. 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.

In the lawsuit, the groups argued that immigration "even at elevated levels" does not constitute an invasion and noted that the number of people entering the country between the ports of entry had fallen to lows not seen since August 2020.

Trump's latest asylum ban uses a statute known as 212(f) to block all migrants at the southern border from claiming asylum, the same legal authority Trump used for his travel ban policies targeting Muslim-majority countries and other nations. The Supreme Court upheld a version of Trump's travel ban in 2018.

The groups argued that Trump's declaration was an "extreme example of presidential overreach." They said the government is "summarily expelling noncitizens" — often in just a few hours — without giving them the opportunity to apply for asylum or other forms of protection they're legally entitled to and without giving them the opportunity to make a phone call.