‘Incendiary and isolationist’: Trump’s ‘unprecedented power grab’ to shut down border asylum will make thousands vulnerable to persecution and death, lawsuit says

Inset: President Donald Trump signs an executive order at an indoor Presidential Inauguration parade event in Washington, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke). Background: Police face off with demonstrators during an immigration rights protest Monday, Feb. 3, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope).

Inset: President Donald Trump signs an executive order at an indoor Presidential Inauguration parade event in Washington, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke). Background: Police face off with demonstrators during an immigration rights protest Monday, Feb. 3, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope).

An immigrant rights group is suing the Trump Administration over the president’s proposed asylum shutdown at the U.S.-Mexico border, calling it an “unprecedented power grab” that will make thousands vulnerable to persecution and death.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court, alleges that President Donald Trump’s proclamation, “Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion,” violates long-standing congressional protections for asylum-seekers and puts them in danger by sending them back to volatile countries.

“This is an unprecedented power grab that will put countless lives in danger,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, one of the groups that filed the complaint on behalf of Florence Project, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), in a press release. “No president has the authority to unilaterally override the protections Congress has afforded those fleeing danger.”

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