Las Americas v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security: Challenging Biden's June 2024 Asylum Ban

(D.D.C. No. 1:24-cv-1702)

This lawsuit challenges the Biden administration’s June 5, 2024, asylum ban and related changes to the “expedited removal” process that will wrongfully return many people back to persecution and severe violence. The ban and changes immediately followed a presidential proclamation purporting to declare an “emergency” at the U.S.-Mexico border.

NIJC joined the American Civil Liberties Union Immigrant Rights Project, the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, the Texas Civil Rights Project, and the ACLU of Texas to sue the Biden administration on behalf of individual asylum seekers, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, and Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services.

The new ban mirrors a Trump administration ban from 2018 that the federal courts invalidated. Like that ban, the new ban bars people from asylum if they enter the United States between ports of entry—even though U.S. asylum law expressly permits anyone to apply asylum no matter how they enter the country. The lawsuit argues that the ban is therefore contrary to the asylum statute.

The lawsuit also challenges three other harmful changes to the expedited removal process that went into effect at the same time as the new ban:

A requirement that people affirmatively volunteer a fear of return to their country of origin to Border Patrol officials in order to receive protection screening. This requirement will be impossible to fulfill for many people because of language barriers and trauma, and because the Border Patrol has a long history of ignoring statements of fear;
A new, higher standard for the protection screening interviews known as “credible fear interviews,” which will return many people to danger simply because they lack sufficient evidence when they arrive at the border; and
A reduced timeline for consultations prior to credible fear interviews to as little as four hours, which will prevent the vast majority of people from consulting with counsel or anyone else before their interviews.

Using immigration employees who are not trained asylum officers to conduct credible fear interviews. Las Americas v. Department of Homeland Security was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Plaintiffs

The individual plaintiffs for this case are noncitizens who came to the United States to seek asylum and were unlawfully given expedited removal orders as a result of the new policies.

The organizational plaintiffs are organizations that serve asylum seekers which include Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES).