Immigration Rights issue image

East Bay v. Barr

Last Update: February 16, 2021

What's at Stake

The American Civil Liberties Union, Southern Poverty Law Center, and Center for Constitutional Rights filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s new asylum restrictions announced July 15, 2019.

The lawsuit was filed July 16 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

Most Recent Updates

August 26: The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to lift the court order preventing it from fully enforcing its new rule that categorically denies asylum to anyone at the southern border who had transited through a third country en route to the United States, with very limited exceptions. Federal courts have blocked the ban in the ACLU’s challenge. ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said the “ban upends four decades of unbroken practice and would cause untold harm to families and children if allowed to take effect.”

August 19: We asked U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar to immediately reinstate the nationwide injunction, following the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling a few days earlier narrowing the scope of the injunction to that circuit. Gelernt said: “We are asking the court to immediately reinstate the nationwide injunction based on overwhelming evidence of the grave danger facing asylum-seekers, and the irreparable harm our plaintiff organizations will suffer given that they assist asylum-seekers who enter the country along the entire southern border.”

August 16: Ninth Circuit rules on stay
Gelernt said: “The court properly refused to let the new asylum ban go into effect, though currently limited to the Ninth Circuit. We will continue fighting to fully and permanently end the ban.”

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