Lawsuit challenges ban on people seeking asylum at border as homeland security and justice departments say order is lawful

Leading civil rights groups have filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to end Donald Trump’s ban on people seeking asylum at the US border with Mexico because it violates US law.

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Starting on Saturday, people fleeing persecution can be barred from the asylum process if they do not approach the border at designated border checkpoints.

The order will remain in effect for at least three months, unless a judge rules in favor of the lawsuit filed in federal court by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Center for Constitutional Rights.

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Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said Trump and his administration were trying to override US law by instituting the ban. “This action undermines the rule of law and is a great moral failure because it tries to take away protections from individuals facing persecution – it’s the opposite of what America should stand for,” Jadwat said.

The government considers the bar an emergency measure to respond to people fleeing violence in the Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, but it comes after Trump repeatedly described desperate Central Americans as “an invasion”.

The 18-page lawsuit challenges Trump administration claims that the border is in “crisis” and instead describes how illegal border crossings have declined significantly from record highs in the early 2000s – 1.25 million fewer people were processed at the southern border in fiscal year 2018 than the in fiscal year 2000.

While Trump administration officials have for years accused many asylum seekers of manipulating the system, the lawsuit said many people seeking refuge are not well informed about the process or know that they should approach a designated port of entry to request asylum.

“Even those refugees who know that designated ports of arrival exist often have no idea where they are or how to find them,” the suit said.

The suit also claims asylum processing has slowed in recent months in ways that can be “life-threatening” for people seeking refuge.

“The region of Mexico near the border with the United States is a particularly violent area with limited law enforcement capacity,” the suit said. “Asylum seekers turned back from a port of entry have been raped, beaten and kidnapped and held for ransom by cartel members waiting outside.”

In a joint statement, the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice said the president’s order was lawful. “We should not have to go to court to defend the president’s clear legal authority or our rights as a sovereign nation, but we will not hesitate to do so,” the statement said. “We are confident that the rule of law will prevail.

“The fact that the ACLU and its partners would go to court to specifically sue for the right for aliens to enter the country illegally is demonstrative of the open border community’s disdain for our nation’s laws that almost all rational Americans find appalling.”

The suit was brought on behalf of the immigrant advocacy groups East Bay Sanctuary Covenant and Al Otro Lado, as well as the Innovation Law Lab and Central American Resource Center in Los Angeles. The suit says the new ban forces these aid groups to divert their resources from providing assistance and support to individuals fleeing persecution and violence.

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The bar follows two years of efforts by the Trump administration to restrict legal and illegal immigration to the US, including by targeting the asylum and refugee process.

In June, former attorney general Jeff Sessions ordered US immigration courts to stop granting asylum to victims of domestic abuse and gang violence.

In August 2017, the Trump administration announced it shut down the Central American Minors (Cam) program, which allowed people lawfully in the US to apply for refugee resettlement or temporary immigration status for their children or other eligible family members.

It has also shrunk refugee admissions to a record low – making it more difficult for people to apply for refuge from their home country instead of pursuing a case at the border.