SPLC Seeks Federal Court to Block ‘Return to Mexico’ Policy
Statement from Melissa Crow, Senior Supervising Attorney with the SPLC’s Immigrant Justice Project regarding filing:
Last night the Southern Poverty Law Center, American Civil Liberties Union, and Center for Gender & Refugee Studies asked a federal judge to block the Trump administration’s new policy forcing asylum seekers to return to Mexico and remain there while awaiting their hearings in immigration court. Late last week the organizations filed a federal lawsuit challenging the policy on behalf of nearly a dozen asylum seekers who were forcibly returned to Mexico and a number of advocacy organizations that provide legal representation and other assistance to asylum seekers.
“There is absolutely no doubt that this policy jeopardizes the lives and well-being of vulnerable asylum seekers. The irreparable harm it has caused could not be more clear. The President himself has, on numerous occasions, cited the dangerous situation on the other side of the U.S.-Mexico border. Every moment it is in place, lives are in danger.”
The organizational plaintiffs named in the lawsuit include Innovation Law Lab, the Central American Resource Center of Northern California, Centro Legal de la Raza, the University of San Francisco School of Law Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic, Al Otro Lado, and the Tahirih Justice Center.
The filing can be viewed here: https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/2019.02.20.0020-1_ps_memo_iso_tro.pdf
The case is Innovation Law Lab v. Neilsen.
