The new executive order from President Biden drastically curtailing asylum rights at the border is already facing threats of lawsuits from those who successfully toppled similar efforts from former President Trump, The Hill reports. “The law could not be more clear that it doesn’t matter where you enter, you have to be screened for asylum. So that’s why this policy of cutting off asylum for people who enter between ports is illegal. And that’s why it was illegal when Trump tried it,” said Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who led previous litigation over Trump-era asylum rules and has pledged to challenge this rule as well.
Administration officials waved off the immediate threat of lawsuits. “I think we are accustomed to being litigated, frankly, from both sides of the political spectrum for just about any measure we take in this space, and that is just yet another sign that there is no lasting solution to the challenges we are facing without Congress doing its job,” a senior administration official told reporters Tuesday. Biden’s proclamation and a joint rule from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) takes numerous hits at Congress for failing to act to change asylum law — arguing the process it lays out is simply unworkable with modern migration flows where people are increasingly seeking the protection. “For the vast majority of people in immigration proceedings, the current laws make it impossible to quickly grant protection to those who require it and to quickly remove those who do not establish a legal basis to remain in the United States,” Biden wrote in the order.