‘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).

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.”

Jennifer Babaie, director of advocacy and legal services of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, said spreading falsehoods about an “invasion” at the border “only fuels fear, aiming to dismantle the entire asylum process and weaponize our immigration laws.”

“At Las Americas, we take our role of welcoming seriously and are committed to protecting it,” Babaie said. “We will not stand idly by as our immigration laws are manipulated.”

Javier Hidalgo, the legal director at RAICES, said the Trump administration “is true to its original form and using racist pretext as a means to further the president’s cowardly xenophobic agenda.”

“In President Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s dystopian vision for the U.S., no one is safe from the devastating wreckage of their cruelty, and it’s the American people who stand to suffer the most if we do not intervene in opposition to such incendiary and isolationist policies,” he said.

White House spokesman Kush Desai said that with the 2024 election, Trump was given a “resounding mandate to end the disregard and abuse of our immigration laws and secure our borders.”

“The Trump administration will continue to put Americans and America First,” Desai said.

The lawsuit alleges the Proclamation, issued on Inauguration Day, attempts to prohibit asylum under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). The act allows noncitizens fleeing persecution in their home countries to seek protection in the U.S., granting them asylum and prohibiting the U.S. from returning these individuals to places of danger. The proclamation, however, mandates returning asylum-seekers — including families — to countries where they face harm, and it offers no protections for unaccompanied minors, the lawsuit said.

“The Proclamation is as unlawful as it is unprecedented,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit said it authorizes suspension of entry but not expulsion of noncitizens already in the U.S., and its claim of an “invasion” disregards Congress’ statutes and exceeds presidential powers.

“Whatever the outer limits of the President’s constitutional authorities, they do not confer a preclusive power that permits the President to dispense with the statutes relevant here,” the lawsuit said. “And immigration — even at elevated levels — is not an ‘invasion.””

The lawsuit is the latest pushback against Trump’s immigration policies, executive orders, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids since he took office on Jan. 20. Last month, a stunned judge halted Trump’s “blatantly unconstitutional” order ending birthright citizenship.

Trump’s immigration policies have prompted protests around the country. In Los Angeles, thousands of people blocked a freeway, waving flags and holding signs with messages such as “We Are Not Criminals” and “The real criminal is in the White House.” In Detroit and Chicago, businesses closed for a “Day Without Immigrants” to protest immigration crackdowns.

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

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

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