The Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at UC Law San Francisco and other legal service providers are challenging an executive order by President Donald Trump that suspends entry to the United States for asylum seekers, claiming that it violates immigration protections put in place by Congress.
The center joined a federal lawsuit Monday opposing Trump’s proclamation that there was an “invasion” at the U.S.-Mexico border. The suit claims that the order is in violation of federal law, which requires the U.S. to allow people to enter the country to apply for asylum and prohibits the government from returning people to a country where they face the threat of persecution or torture.
“Under the Proclamation, the government is doing just what Congress by statute decreed that the United States must not do. It is returning asylum seekers — not just single adults, but families too — to countries where they face persecution or torture, without allowing them to invoke the protections Congress has provided,” the suit reads.