The Trump administration's safe third country asylum deals to curb illegal immigration through Mexico face a court challenge filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and other human rights groups.
"The policies block asylum seekers from ever receiving a chance at asylum in the U.S.," the ACLU wrote in a statement on its website. "They are instead being sent to Guatemala — and soon to El Salvador and Honduras. These countries are plagued by epidemic violence, instability, and ill-equipped asylum systems."
The ACLU, National Immigrant Justice Center, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, and Human Rights First filed a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
"The Trump administration has created a deadly game of musical chairs that leaves desperate refugees without a safe haven, in violation of U.S. and international law," ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project attorney Katrina Eiland said in the statement. "The administration is illegally trying to turn away asylum seekers and pass the buck to other countries that can't protect them."
The "safe third country" deals merely send those seeking to avoid violence are merely being sent back to dangerous places, the lawsuit argues, per the ACLU.
"People have the legal right to apply for asylum in the U.S. unless they can be sent to another safe country via a valid agreement," the statement continued. "However, the country must first provide 'access to a full and fair procedure for determining a claim to asylum' in order to qualify as safe. These countries fail to meet that standard."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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