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national immigration law center
ACLU Plans Lawsuit Over Biden's Trumpian Attack on Asylum Rights
"It was illegal when Trump did it, and it is no less illegal now."
Jun 04, 2024
The ACLU on Tuesday vowed to launch a legal challenge to U.S. President Joe Biden's executive order barring migrants who cross the southern border without authorization from receiving asylum.
Biden's executive action invokes Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act—previously used by the administration of former Republican President Donald Trump to deny migrants asylum—"when the southern border is overwhelmed."
Under the policy, asylum requests will be shut down when the average number of daily migrant encounters between ports of entry hits 2,500. Border entry points would reopen to asylum-seekers when that number dips below 1,500.
The president said he was acting, in part, because "Republicans in Congress chose to put partisan politics ahead of our national security, twice voting against the toughest and fairest set of reforms in decades."
On Tuesday, the ACLU said Biden's policy will "rush vulnerable people through already fast-tracked deportation proceedings, sending people in need of protection to their deaths."
"We intend to challenge this order in court," Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, said in a statement. "It was illegal when Trump did it, and it is no less illegal now."
In July 2020 a federal judge in Washington, D.C. struck down the Trump administration's ban on most Central Americans and migrants from other countries.
ACLU chief political and advocacy officer Deirdre Schifeling said that "we need solutions to address the challenges at the border, but the administration's planned executive actions will put thousands of lives at risk."
"They will not meet the needs at the border, nor will they fix our broken immigration system," Schifeling added. "We urge the administration to uphold its campaign promise to restore asylum and mobilize the necessary resources to address the challenges at the border. It's not just the morally sound thing to do—it's good politics."
The ACLU pointed to polling showing that "voters nationwide and in battleground states largely reject enforcement-only policies that put vulnerable people in danger."
The group is advocating "balanced and humane solutions" including "improving processing at ports of entry and addressing the immigration case backlog by investing in immigration court judges and legal representation."
This isn't the first time that Biden's immigration policies have been likened to those of Trump, who is the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee despite having recently been convicted on 34 felony counts and facing 54 other federal and state charges across three cases.
One year ago, critics accused Biden of "finishing Trump's job" by implementing a crackdown on asylum-seekers upon the expiration of Title 42—a provision first invoked during the previous administration at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and continued by Biden to expel more than 1 million migrants under the pretext of public health.
The international medical charity Doctors Without Borders—which has deployed aid teams along migration routes—warned Tuesday that Biden's new order will put vulnerable people who endure treacherous, sometimes deadly, risks trying to reach the United States "at even greater risk."
"In signing this executive order, President Biden has betrayed his promise to build a fair, safe, and humane immigration system," Doctors Without Borders USA CEO Avril Benoît said in a statement. "This order is not only counter to U.S. law and international law, it puts people's lives and health at risk."
"Today's decision will trap vulnerable people, including young families, in insecure cities in Mexico and put them in grave danger," Benoît added. "The Biden administration continues to prioritize optics and political expediency at the expense of thousands of people who are attempting to exercise their legal right to seek asylum."
Kica Matos, president of the National Immigration Law Center and the NILC Immigrant Justice Fund, said Tuesday that "President Biden's craven embrace of failed Republican policies is a mistake that will only lead to more harm and dysfunction at the U.S.-Mexico border."
"There is a better way," she stressed. "Rather than playing politics with people's lives, the president should pursue practical solutions that increase our capacity to welcome immigrants humanely. These solutions include timely and fair processing of asylum applications, expanding legal pathways, and supporting cities that are welcoming our new neighbors."
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'A Death Sentence for Many': Rights Groups Implore Congress to Reject Border Deal
"If this bill passes, it will mark a complete abdication of the United States' legal and moral commitments to refugees," said one advocacy organization.
Feb 05, 2024
Immigrant rights groups are urging Congress to reject bipartisan Senate legislation released Sunday that would severely weaken asylum protections, expand migrant detention capacity, and give the president the authority to effectively shut down U.S.-Mexico border crossings under certain conditions—power that President Joe Biden vowed to use immediately if the bill reaches his desk.
Anthony Romero, the ACLU's executive director, said lawmakers must ensure it never does, warning that the bill's enactment "would eviscerate longstanding asylum protections" and institute "variations of Stephen Miller's playbook"—a reference to the xenophobic White House adviser to former president Donald Trump.
"Deportation without due process was the Trump administration's disastrous experiment which should never be repeated, let alone used as a model for permanent border policy," said Romero. "This deal would force the government to summarily expel people from the border without due process, restricting legal pathways for the people who need them most."
"Eliminating longstanding, core due process protections like court review of asylum cases and doubling down on harmful deterrence and detention policies are not going to get cities and states the support they need, nor are they a substitute for policies that would improve border management and address the immigration case backlog," he added. "This deal also fails to deliver on years of promises to enact reforms providing pathways to citizenship for Dreamers and other longtime residents."
As The Washington Postnoted, the past several months of border-related talks "have been unusual, given that past efforts at bipartisan immigration reform included discussions of providing pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already living in the country demanded by Democrats, in addition to tightening border restrictions."
A pathway to citizenship was never on the table during negotiations over the new package. Instead, as The Intercept's Ryan Grim pointed out, Senate Democrats granted some of the GOP's anti-immigrant demands in exchange for military aid for Ukraine.
The 370-page bill includes more than $60 billion in military aid for Ukraine and around $14 billion for Israel.
Immigration policy analyst Adam Isacson observed in a brief analysis of the legislation that it includes "a lot of the controversial limits on access to asylum that had already been reported in media."
The bill, he observed, would require asylum seekers placed in the "expedited removal" process to "meet a much higher standard of 'credible fear' in screening interviews with asylum officers," raising the possibility that many people would be sent back into life-threatening circumstances.
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), the bill's lead GOP negotiator, called the measure's asylum changes "dramatic."
The new bill would also "allow the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to impose a Title 42-like expulsion authority, 'summarily removing' asylum seekers from the United States (except for hard-to-prove Convention Against Torture appeals), when unauthorized migrant encounters reach a daily threshold," Isacson added.
In addition to the new discretionary authority, the bill would require DHS to mostly shut down the asylum process if an average of 5,000 people or more reach the southern border per day over a seven-day period.
"While Donald Trump abhorrently says, 'Immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country,' congressional Republicans continue to openly admit they'd prefer the politics of a broken immigration system to a functional, just process."
Kica Matos, president of the National Immigration Law Center, said in a statement that the legislation "is not worth the incredible price it would exact—more families separated, more children detained, and more people sent back to face persecution, torture, and even death."
"Instead of enacting draconian policies that create more chaos," Matos continued, "we urge the White House and Senate Democrats to change course, reject this framework, and recommit to building an orderly, humane, and functioning immigration system."
The Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGRS) similarly implored members of Congress to oppose the agreement, calling it "a shameful attempt at political posturing that treats refugees' lives as expendable."
"If this bill passes, it will mark a complete abdication of the United States' legal and moral commitments to refugees and a stunning betrayal of President Biden's promise to restore our 'historic role as a safe haven' for those escaping persecution," said CGRS legal director Blaine Bookey. "It will amount to a death sentence for many people seeking refuge in the United States. We implore the Biden administration to reverse course, and we urge lawmakers to oppose this deal."
The legislation also faced immediate backlash from progressive lawmakers.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the roughly 100-member Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the bill "includes poison pill provisions such as new Title 42-like expulsion authority that will close the border and turn away asylum seekers without due process, a boon to cartels who prey on migrants."
"While Donald Trump abhorrently says, 'Immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country,' congressional Republicans continue to openly admit they'd prefer the politics of a broken immigration system to a functional, just process," Jayapal continued. "Democrats have given in to these extremist views over and over again for 30 years. By refusing to make the structural changes in the Senate needed to pass true reforms, allowing MAGA Republicans to lie to the American public, and declining to stand up and defend immigrant communities, it appears that President Biden and Senate Democrats have fallen into the same trap again."
While the White House and top Republican and Democratic senators have lined up behind the bill, its prospects remain highly uncertain in both the upper chamber and the GOP-controlled House of Representatives. In a social media post late Sunday, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) said the bill is "dead on arrival" if it reaches the lower chamber.
Even if the bill ultimately doesn't become law, observers warned that the Senate deal could do lasting damage to efforts to create a humane immigration system.
"I think the House Republicans mean what they say on not passing this border bill, but this is the end of comprehensive immigration reform because Democrats just showed that they don't need a path to citizenship to make a deal," wroteThe American Prospect's David Dayen.
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Immigrants Win 'Unprecedented' Settlement Over Violent ICE Raid in Tennessee
"Today's ruling is a testament to the incredible power and resiliency of immigrant workers and their communities," said one advocate.
Feb 28, 2023
Immigrant rights groups celebrated a historic victory late Monday as a federal judge handed down what is believed to be the first-ever class action settlement over a workplace immigration raid in the United States, awarding $1.17 million to nearly 100 people who were targeted by the Trump administration in 2018.
Most of the plaintiffs will receive more than $5,700 each, while a total of $475,000 will be split between six people who the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee found were eligible to be compensated for "negligent or wrongful acts by agents of the federal government," The New York Timesreported Monday.
The plaintiffs, represented by legal advocacy groups including the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), were rounded up by the Department of Homeland Security in April 2018 after an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) found that their employer at a meat processing plant in Bean Station, Tennessee was evading taxes by paying them in cash.
"They used the pretext of a tax investigation of the plant's owner to plan and carry out a full-blown operation targeting the Latino workers," Michelle Lapointe, deputy legal director for the NILC, told the Times on Monday.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents descended on the plant and violently arrested dozens of Latino workers, separating them from their white coworkers and physically assaulting some of them. The warrant the agents had to enter the premises did not authorize them to arrest anyone. Only one Latino employee avoided the raid—by hiding in a meat freezer.
A majority of the workers were placed in deportation court proceedings and at least 20 were deported shortly after the raid.
More than 150 children were directly affected by the raid, as their parents were detained. The nearby city of Morristown rallied around the immigrant community, providing legal services, donations, help with locating detained people, and child care.
The NILC called the legal victory handed down on Monday "a testament to the power of community organizing to protect workers' rights."
\u201c"I am content to see that justice prevailed over injustice. I am thankful to the legal team and the class members, who stuck together throughout this time. We will always remember that we are one." - Martha Pulido, plaintiff & resident of Morristown, TN\u201d— National Immigration Law Center (@National Immigration Law Center) 1677537498
"Today's ruling is a testament to the incredible power and resiliency of immigrant workers and their communities," said Lisa Sherman Luna, executive director at the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition. "Violent enforcement tactics like workplace raids are designed to keep immigrant families living in fear, but these plaintiffs and class members refused to stand by when they knew their rights had been violated. This settlement sends a clear message: No matter who we are or where we are from, we all deserve the freedom to work and live safely in our communities."
Meredith Stewart, senior supervising attorney at the SPLC's Immigrant Justice Project, called the ruling "unprecedented" and said the settlement "demonstrates that we, as a nation, will not tolerate racial profiling."
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