President Donald Trump, who made his anti-immigration views the centerpiece of his 2016 election campaign, has consistently proposed policy changes to make entry more difficult for immigrants and asylum seekers arriving at the U.S. southern border. For immigrants who make it across the border. his administration has issued directives that have resulted in the separation of children from their parents and inhumane conditions at border detention facilities where access to food, water, medical attention and basic sanitation are severely restricted.
On July 15, the Trump regime announced a new rule designed to prevent almost all Central Americans from entering the U.S., regardless of the reasons for fleeing their homes, which is often the threat of violence and/or poverty. The new regulation, if implemented, would reject asylum applications from all migrants who fail to apply for protection in a third country through which they traveled, outside of the nation where they currently hold citizenship.
However, after lawsuits were filed by human rights groups to block the new rule, Judge Jon S. Tigar of the United States District Court in San Francisco issued a preliminary injunction on July 24, which temporarily blocked implementation of the plan until the legal issues can be fully adjudicated. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Angelo Guisado, staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which along with the ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center have mounted a legal challenge to Trump’s new asylum rules. Here, he explains the effect of the asylum ban families fleeing persecution, and the policy’s clear violation of both U.S. and international law.
ANGELO GUISADO: The Trump administration released an interim final rule barring individuals from asylum who had transited through a third country – so basically anyone except people from Mexico. And it’s really just the Trump administration’s latest inventive attempt to restrict the amount of brown-skinned immigrants that emigrate to the country. Obviously, we remember child separation, zero tolerance prosecution. They administer an illegal waitlist at the southern border, which we also challenged in federal court. And I mean there’s other policies as well. I mean, they intend to reduce the amount of refugees that they accept from other countries and it’s just part and parcel of a xenophobic and nativist policy or set of policies to make the United States whiter. And so what we did was we filed for emergency injunctive relief. We asked for a temporary restraining order, turned into a preliminary injunction, basically asking the court that, more likely than not, the Trump administration wouldn’t succeed.
And the San Francisco federal judge, Judge Tigar agreed in a very careful and thorough 45-page decision basically because the fundamental principle of this area of law where the president can act, where it shares power with Congress, is that the president can’t contravene congressional will. The president does have, does share responsibility to promulgate laws and rules over immigration with Congress. But the president can’t contravene, contradict or specifically go against what Congress has already said. And so we pointed to many laws – international laws, federal laws, and especially the 1980 Refugee Act in saying that, you know what, Congress actually considered how we should administer asylum for people who transit through third countries. So I speak about specifically The Firm Resettlement Bar and the Safe Third Country provision. And the Trump administration really is totally inconsistent in this recent rule with both of those provisions.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Angelo, maybe it’d be useful to review for our listeners the current law as it applies to asylum seekers. And as you mentioned, the rules of the road when it comes to asylum seekers is not just a congressional role as I understand it, but there are international obligations as well. And you can go into some detail there if you would.
ANGELO GUISADO: Of course. Of course. So, I’ll start internationally. Right? So, after World War II, the UN passed the 1951 Refugee Convention, and the 1967 Protocol. And in the 1970s, the United States Congress recognized that it was out of step with international humanitarian norms. Right?
So it passed a very robust 1980 (Refugee) Act and put in place many of the asylum provisions that we have here. As well, there are still extant international duties saying that you can’t return someone to places that they fear, right? And so, I think one of the things that people, and your listeners specifically should keep in mind is that requiring someone to apply for asylum in a country like Guatemala or El Salvador or Nicaragua, many of these places aren’t safe generally and also don’t have robust asylum protections. And so it’s unusual and particularly cruel to force individuals to apply in those states first.
There’s a reason the United States has for many years, maybe up until the Trump administration, put itself out as a leader of humanitarian ideals and norms. And that’s because when we passed the Refugee Act in 1980, the country recommitted itself to fundamental and basic protections, like the right to ask for asylum. Nothing about this lawsuit or any of our lawsuits say that the country has to guarantee asylum – only that we provide the most basic and fundamental humanitarian procedures that a country should offer.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Well, Angelo, we’re just about out of time and I wanted to leave our listeners with the ways in which they can get involved in this fight. This is not only restrictive to the courts. Say a word, if you would, about what our listeners could be doing apart from just being spectators.
ANGELO GUISADO: Resistance can take many small forms. And so, whether it’s protesting a local police policy to arrest people for very minor infractions, that sends undocumented people into the criminal justice system and into the immigration system; whether it’s filming ICE or demanding that ICE get out of communities; whether it’s just asking someone whether they need anything. They’re very small measures that can have great and profound impacts. And it’s part of the American fabric. And it’s why I’m so proud to call myself an American.
For more information, visit the Center for Constitutional Rights at CCRjustice.org.
