A group of immigrant advocacy groups sued the Biden administration on Wednesday over its executive action to restrict the asylum process last week.
The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and others on behalf of the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services.
In a complaint filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., attorneys for the groups argued that Biden’s recent executive action to temporarily limit asylum processing violated a statute enacted by Congress, which allows migrants to seek asylum “regardless of whether they’re entering a port. of entry.
“While Congress has imposed some restrictions on the right to seek asylum over the years, it has never allowed the executive branch to categorically ban asylum based on where a noncitizen enters the country,” the statement said. court case.
“This clear statutory text prohibits the President and the Executive Branch from denying asylum to noncitizens based on their method of entry into the United States,” the filing continues.
Biden issued an executive action last week that temporarily limits the asylum process once there is an average of 2,500 encounters or more for seven consecutive calendar days. The action took effect immediately as daily encounters reached a daily average of more than 4,000, according to DHS officials. Under the action, the border would reopen 14 days after the DHS secretary determined that there have been seven consecutive days with an average of fewer than 1,500 daily encounters between ports of entry.
Some exceptions are allowed, including for unaccompanied children.
Lee Gelernt, the deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, who championed the challenge to the Trump administration’s asylum ban, had previewed the group’s plans to file a lawsuit shortly after Biden had unveiled the action last week.
“We had no choice but to file a lawsuit,” Gelernt said in a statement Wednesday. “The administration lacks unilateral authority to override Congress and ban asylum based on how a person enters the country, a point the courts made crystal clear when the Trump administration tried unsuccessfully to implement a nearly identical ban.”
White House assistant press secretary Angelo Fernández Hernández said the administration took action “because border conflict remains too high.”
“The administration will continue to enforce our immigration laws – laws with no legal basis for remaining in the United States will be removed. We refer you to the Department of Justice for any questions regarding the lawsuit,” Hernández added in the statement on Wednesday.
A DHS spokesperson said the department cannot comment on pending litigation.
“The border security rule is lawful, critical to strengthening border security, and is already having an impact. The challenged actions remain in effect and we will continue to implement them,” DHS spokesperson Naree Ketudat said in a statement to NBC News. “Non-citizens without permission should not come to our southern border. There are serious consequences for crossing illegally.”
Biden took the action by invoking provisions in the Immigration and Nationality Act, including 212(f), which gives the president the authority to suspend the entry of some migrants in cases where their entry is deemed “detrimental to the interests of the United States” is considered.
The Trump administration attempted an asylum ban under the same provision in 2018 that was blocked by the courts.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, there were 179,725 encounters along the southern border in April, a slight decrease from recent months. More than 1.5 million encounters have been recorded so far this fiscal year, meaning fiscal year 2024 has surpassed fiscal years 2023, 2022 and 2021 in encounters so far, according to the data.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
