REFUGEE AND IMMIGRANT CENTER FOR EDUCATION AND LEGAL SERVICES V. TRUMP – PREVENTING PRESIDENT TRUMP FROM SUMMARILY EXPELLING REFUGEES SEEKING ASYLUM

Federal law protects noncitizens fleeing persecution or torture, granting them asylum rights. We sued the Trump administration over the president’s proclamation aimed at completely shutting down asylum at the border, a move that puts thousands of lives at risk.

Federal law guarantees noncitizens fleeing persecution and torture in other nations the opportunity to seek protection in the United States, if they arrive here. It has prohibited the government from removing individuals to places where they face persecution and torture. But President Trump has attempted to wipe away these laws by fiat.

On January 20, 2025, within hours of his inauguration, President Trump issued a proclamation, “Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion,” that purports to prohibit noncitizens who have arrived in the United States from seeking asylum and instead to summarily expel them to countries where they face persecution and torture. The proclamation principally relies on Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f), which authorizes the President to “suspend the entry” of noncitizens when their entry “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.” But this authority to “suspend entry” does not empower the President to expel people who have already entered the United States, much less to do so in violation of the protections and procedures Congress provided elsewhere in the same statute.

We filed this lawsuit on February 3, 2025, together with the National ACLU, the ACLU of Texas, the National Immigrant Justice Center, the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, and the Texas Civil Rights Project, on behalf of three nonprofit organizations that provide legal services to refugees seeking asylum. The case asks the court to prohibit the government from implementing this Trump proclamation.