ACLU sues Biden administration over new asylum rule

A group of immigrant advocacy organizations sued the Biden administration Wednesday over its executive action limiting asylum processing last week.

The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and others on behalf of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services.

In a complaint filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., attorneys for the groups argued that Biden's recent executive action temporarily limiting asylum processing violated a statute enacted by Congress, which allows migrants to apply for asylum “whether or not” they enter at a port of entry.

"While Congress has placed some limitations on the right to seek asylum over the years, it has never permitted the Executive Branch to categorically ban asylum based on where a noncitizen enters the country," the lawsuit states.

"That plain statutory text precludes the President and the Executive Branch from barring noncitizens from asylum based on their manner of entry into the United States," the filing continues.

Biden last week issued an executive action temporarily limiting asylum processing once there's a seven-consecutive-calendar-day average of 2,500 encounters or more. The action went into effect immediately, since daily encounters were hitting a daily average of more than 4,000, according to DHS officials. According to the action, the border would reopen 14 days after the DHS secretary determines that there has been seven consecutive days averaging less than 1,500 daily encounters between ports of entry.

Some exceptions are permitted, including for unaccompanied children.

Lee Gelernt, the deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project who argued the challenge to the