What You Need to Know About the Lawsuit Against Trump’s New Asylum Policies
This morning a federal judge will hear a challenge to the Trump administration’s recently announced changes to the rules governing asylum.
The changes came mere days after the midterm election and in response to the Central American caravan’s continued approach to the U.S. border. On November 9, 2018, Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker and Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen jointly issued new regulations governing asylum claims. Those regulations provide that individuals who enter the United States in contravention of the presidential proclamation suspending entry of aliens through the southern border with Mexico, other than at a port of entry, are ineligible for asylum. The following day, President Trump issued the referenced proclamation.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) responded immediately, filing suit in a San Francisco-based federal court on behalf of four nonprofit organizations that assist asylum applicants: East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, Al Otro Lado, Innovation Law Lab, and Central American Resource Center in Los Angeles. In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs allege that the Trump administration’s newly issued asylum regulations violate the Administrative Procedure Act’s requirement that regulations be published 30 days prior to their effective date. The nonprofit organizations also argue that the regulations violate the Immigration and Nationality Act by barring those who illegally cross the southern border from qualifying for asylum. . .
The Department of Justice argued in its brief that the plaintiffs lack standing to challenge the regulations at issue. The Trump administration is correct. To sue, a plaintiff must suffer a cognizable injury and, in this case, the changes to the rules governing asylum do not harm the nonprofit organizations. . .
The ACLU’s third-party standing argument fares no better, though, for three reasons. First, the plaintiffs did not make this argument in their initial court filing and such belated arguments are waived. Second, even if the plaintiffs had not waived the argument, in order to assert third-party standing Al Otro Lado and the other nonprofit plaintiffs must still suffer an actual injury. It is not enough that the regulations harm third parties not before the court. (Read more from “What You Need to Know About the Lawsuit Against Trump’s New Asylum Policies” HERE)
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