Several left-wing illegal immigrant advocacy groups sued the Biden administration over the president’s recent directive that limits asylum processing at the southern border.
According to the Associated Press, the lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and others on behalf of the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES).
“By enacting an asylum ban that is legally indistinguishable from the Trump ban we successfully blocked, we were left with no choice but to file this lawsuit,” Lee Gelernt, an attorney for the ACLU, said in a statement.
AP noted that Biden invoked the same legal authority of Trump for the policy (via AP):
The order went into effect June 5, and Biden administration officials have said they expected record levels of deportations.
But advocates argue that suspending asylum for migrants who don’t arrive at a designated port of entry — which the Biden administration is trying to push migrants to do —- violates existing federal immigration law, among other concerns.
“The United States has long sheltered refugees seeking a haven from persecution. The 1980 Refugee Act enshrined that national commitment in law. While Congress has placed some limitations on the right to seek asylum over the years, it has never permitted the Executive Branch to categorically ban asylum based on where a noncitizen enters the country,” the groups wrote in the complaint filed Wednesday.
As Townhall covered, earlier this month, Biden released guidance on border security after months of touting it. As Katie noted, ahead of the order, White House officials told reporters that "individuals who cross the southern border unlawfully or without authorization will generally be ineligible for asylum, absent exceptionally compelling circumstances, unless they are accepted by the proclamation."
Now, the order shuts down the border when encounters between official ports of entry reach 2,500 per day. It does not prevent individuals from falsely claiming asylum at ports of entry.
.@michaelgwaltz: Even with Crooked Joe's toothless executive order, he's saying it's okay at 2,500 a day to allow nearly a million unvetted illegal aliens into America pic.twitter.com/8vKMVbxcHo
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) June 4, 2024
Shortly after, the Biden administration has essentially granted “mass amnesty” to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, as Leah covered.