The union representing federal asylum officers sided late Monday with a court challenge to the Biden administration’s restrictions on asylum at the southern border, saying in a court filing that the policy illegally limits migrants’ protections.
The group, the National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council 119, filed a brief in support of the American Civil Liberties Union’s lawsuit seeking to block the policy in federal court in Washington. The group represents over 1,000 asylum and other humanitarian officers across the United States, some of whom are charged with carrying out the measure.
The union said in the filing that President Biden’s order is not “humane” and that “expanding legal immigration pathways for some does not justify closing legal immigration pathways for others.”
The union added that the order “stands as a practical and symbolic commitment of the United States’ commitment to humanitarian legal obligations.”
The group has previously backed lawsuits against border restrictions under President Donald J. Trump and opposed a previous Biden administration effort to limit asylum access.
“Concern about the United States’ waning commitment to the rule of law with respect to refugee protection in recent years has spurred Council 119 to speak out against illegal policies on behalf of the union members they represent,” the union said in its filing.
The order, which Mr. Biden issued last month under enormous political pressure to address a surge in illegal immigration, shut down the border to Mexico to nearly all migrants seeking asylum in the United States.
The policy suspended longtime guarantees that gave anyone who stepped onto U.S. Soil the right to seek a safe haven. Before, migrants at the border could ask for asylum and would often be released into the United States to wait, sometimes years, for their cases to come up. Now, border officers can more quickly return migrants across the border into Mexico or to their home countries.
The order can be lifted if illegal border crossings fall below 1,500 a day for a certain time.
Since the policy took effect on June 5, border crossings have plunged.
Biden says he’s restricting migrants seeking asylum to help ‘gain control’ of the border
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