Groups File Federal Lawsuit Challenging New Trump Asylum Restrictions 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 16, 2019

CONTACT:
Inga Sarda-Sorensen, ACLU, 347-514-3984, [email protected]
Jen Nessel, Center for Constitutional Rights, 212-614-6449, [email protected]
Marion Steinfels, SPLC, 202-557-0430, [email protected]

SAN FRANCISCO — The American Civil Liberties Union, Southern Poverty Law Center, and Center for Constitutional Rights filed a federal lawsuit today challenging the Trump administration’s new asylum restrictions.

The following comments are from:

ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt: “This is the Trump administration’s most extreme run at an asylum ban yet. It clearly violates domestic and international law, and cannot stand.”

Baher Azmy, Center for Constitutional Rights legal director: “This is the latest — and deeply dangerous — effort by the Trump administration to inflict maximal cruelty on vulnerable people fleeing desperate conditions for safety here. This rule also serves to project the administration's rejection of the fundamental, international post-war consensus that human rights matter. They still do, and this suit seeks to vindicate their value.”

Melissa Crow, senior supervising attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Immigrant Justice Project: “This administration’s relentless war on asylum seekers is nothing short of despicable. Through policy after policy, this administration has manufactured the crisis at our southern border. The new rule would only make this situation worse, while jeopardizing the safety and security of countless migrants fleeing persecution.” 

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.