The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court in Northern California seeking to block the Biden administration’s policy of limiting asylum to those who cross the border without permission.

The policy, which takes effect late Thursday, restricts asylum to migrants who cross a third country on their way to the US and do not seek protection on their way to the southern border.

The ACLU, along with the UC Hastings Center for Gender and Refugee Studies and the National Immigrant Justice Center, wrote in the filing that the new policy was illegal.

“After campaigning with a promise to restore our asylum system, the Biden administration has instead doubled the asylum restrictions of its predecessors,” the brutal lawsuit reads. “The agencies claim the rule only affects asylum seekers who circumvent legal routes. But seeking asylum is a legal route that is protected by our laws regardless of how one enters the country.”

The Trump administration

tried before

bar

red

asylum for migrants who entered the US without authorization and did not seek protection in another country during their journey

but the policy. That suggestion

was blocked in federal court. The groups said the new policy resembles Trump’s past asylum bans.

It is one of the most significant efforts the Biden administration has made to address the surge in migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border following the expiration of Title 42 on Thursday night, a policy implemented by the Trump administration to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. .

The Biden administration also faces lawsuits, including in Florida, where a federal judge on Thursday blocked the Biden administration from quickly releasing migrants from Border Patrol custody without court notices. The lawsuit was filed by the Florida Attorney General’s office.

Leading up to the end of Title 42, migration on the southern border has increased. According to internal data from The Times, border agents detained more than 10,000 migrants on Tuesday. US Customs and Border Protection had more than 28,000 migrants in custody on Wednesday, the data showed.

Federal government lawyers urged the court not to block the government’s recent attempts to relieve the facilities by releasing migrants without a court notice, but ordering them to check in at an immigration – and customs enforcement office. The memo, signed by border guard chief Raul Ortiz on Wednesday, allowed officials to release migrants from their facilities if there were an average of 7,000 arrests per day along the border over a three-day period, or if the facilities exceeded a certain capacity level. .

The government warned that without that power or other efforts more people would be taken into custody.

At the current pace of operations and without additional measures such as parole, USBP would have more than 45,000 individuals in custody by the end of the month. Furthermore, the [U.S. Department of Homeland Security] Chief Medical Officer has concluded that ‘current conditions pose an increased risk of adverse health outcomes,

“

read the filing of the lawyers of the Department of Justice.

Judge T. Kent Wetherell, who was appointed to the District Court by former President Trump, issued the temporary restraining order. It stays for two weeks.

“This is a damaging ruling that will lead to unsafe overcrowding at CBP facilities and undermine our ability to efficiently process and remove migrants, and risk creating dangerous conditions for Border Guard agents and migrants.”

said

a

U.S. Customs and Border Protection CBP

explanations

read released

in response to the order.

The Biden administration is encouraging migrants to seek appointments at ports of entry to enter the US and apply for asylum, and to apply for a program that allows migrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti and Nicaragua to enter the country if they have a financial sponsor and can pass security checks.

This administration has led to the largest expansion of legal avenues for protection in decades, and this regulation will encourage migrants to access those avenues rather than fall into the clutches of smugglers on the southern border, Homeland Security Secretary said Alejandro Mayorkas in a statement released earlier this week. At the same time, we continue to urge Congress to act on President Biden’s reform proposal, bipartisan legislation to protect Dreamers and farm workers, and repeated requests for additional resources to hire more asylum seekers and immigration judges so that we can finally solve our long-standing problems. broken immigration system.