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By Dan Gooding
Associate News Editor
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Immigration advocacy groups have filed suit against the Biden administration over the president's executive order which places limits on the number of asylum seekers allowed across the U.S.-Mexico border.
The order, announced last week, was touted by the Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas as a way to tackle the "broken immigration system," after Congress failed to pass legislation to provide funding to border agencies. It comes ahead of what is expected to be a close election in which immigration regularly ranks among voters' top issues.
On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other immigrant rights groups announced a joint lawsuit, saying that the executive action shuts off asylum protections for most arrivals, however strong their claim.
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"We're already seeing a system, a program, that is irredeemably defunct," Krystle Cartagena, managing attorney at RAICES, a Texas-based organization providing legal services to migrants, told Newsweek.
"It is simply incapable of providing folks with meaningful access to counsel," Cartagena continued.
"So on a day-to-day [basis], we are already struggling with that, with the daily due process violations and abrogation of asylum seekers' rights to seek the assistance of counsel. This new rule will see an expansion of that."
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The new rules laid out by Biden's executive order mean a daily cap of 2,500 daily crossings – effectively banning thousands from entering each day – along with shorter timeframes for deportations of those who do make it across the border.
RAICES' concerns include a shortened window for access to counsel, from around 48 hours down to four, which the attorney said makes it nearly impossible for migrants.
"I was honestly disappointed. That was my initial reaction," Cartagena told Newsweek. "Then just stress, with the massive amount of confusion that this could engender and the added difficulty that this will cause for asylum seekers and the unnecessary violence that they may be subjected to because of this rule."
The attorney said that the executive order was an expansion of anti-migrant policies already enacted by the White House, which she called misguided.
Announcing the policy last week, Mayorkas said the executive order was necessary to deal with those who cross into the U.S. without a valid claim.
"Throughout the last three fiscal years, a majority of all southwest border encounters resulted in a removal, return, or expulsion," the secretary said in a press release. "Over the past year alone, we have removed or returned more than 750,000 people, more than in any fiscal year since 2010.
"The tough measures we announced today are no substitute for much-needed reforms that are only possible through legislation. We continue to call on Congress to act."
The lawsuit challenges the new rules, stating that they go against the asylum statutes enacted by Congress which permits migrants to apply for asylum whether they enter at an official port of entry or not.
"We were left with no alternative but to sue," Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, said in a press release. "The administration lacks unilateral authority to override Congress and bar asylum based on how one enters the country, a point the courts made crystal clear when the Trump administration unsuccessfully tried a near-identical ban."
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Cartagena told Newsweek that the new rules would not stop people trying to get into the U.S. and seek safety from violence they are fleeing.
"Migrants near the border, it's not uncommon for people to be kidnapped, to be subjected to being held for ransom by bad actors near the border who have learned that these policies are just creating spaces for migrants to be placed right into their hands," Cartagena added.
A White House spokesperson told Newsweek on Thursday that the administration was left with no choice but to enact the executive order.
"The Biden-Harris Administration took these actions, within its authorities, because border encounters remain too high and after Congressional Republicans twice voted against a historic bipartisan border security agreement that would have provided critical resources, statutory changes, and additional personnel to the border," the spokesperson said.
"The Administration will continue to enforce our immigration laws – those without a legal basis to remain in the United States will be removed."
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Following the executive order, El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser, who was at the White House for its signing, told Newsweek that further action was needed to better fund resources along the southwest border.
"We still need more funding for more judges, we need more funding for transportation, food, lodging—and so this is really only the tip of the iceberg," the mayor said.
RAICES filed the lawsuit with the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C., along with Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center (Las Americas), the ACLU, the National Immigrant Justice Center, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, Jenner & Block LLP, ACLU of the District of Columbia, and Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP).
Newsweek reached out to the Department of Justice for further comment on the legal action Thursday morning.
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