Immigration advocates are watching a case filed by the ACLU to see if emergency pandemic health restrictions can be used to deport asylum seekers. File photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo
June 10 (UPI) -- A federal judge Wednesday blocked the Trump administration from using pandemic-based health justifications to deport a Honduran teen.
U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan upheld a request from the American Civil Liberties Union in a suit filed Tuesday to issue an emergency temporary restraining order in the case of a minor identified by his initials, "J.B.B.C."
Sullivan is also the federal judge who will decide whether to dismiss the federal case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
The ACLU said in a complaint that the Trump administration and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are unlawfully using a new system to restrict asylum petitions in the name of public health.
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The CDC published an order under Title 42 of the U.S. Code, which restricts entry into the country if there is "serious danger of the introduction of ... disease into the United States."
The complaint alleges that Trump's immigration policy is using Title 42 to block the rightful due-process of asylum seekers.
The 16-year-old boy, who has no symptoms of COVID-19, was apprehended June 4 by border officials, the suit said.
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His father escaped Honduras due to fear of "severe persecution" and lives in the United States while his asylum petition is pending. J.B.B.C. has also experienced persecution and was trying to join his father, his lawyers argued.
"Plaintiff would face grave danger in Honduras and must be given the opportunity to remain in the United States to receive the statutory protections to which he is entitled," the suit said.
The teen is being held as an unaccompanied minor near El Paso, Texas, and was to be deported back to Honduras this week.
The ACLU argues that immigration authorities are expanding the power of Title 42 to circumvent Congress on immigration policies. In the past, Title 42 has authorized testing and quarantine powers, but has never been used to deport migrants.
Before March, an unaccompanied minor seeking asylum would have been placed into the custody of Health and Human Services. The boy would have then joined his father waiting for an asylum hearing.
The Trump administration also pushed through pandemic-related economic measures meant to block visas for undocumented child migrants for 60 days to preserve jobs for U.S. citizens.
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The New York Times estimated in May that more than 900 children have been deported under the new policy, being sent back before they have a chance to coordinate with guardians or sponsors in the United States.
The suit is being watched by immigration advocates to see whether the new Title 42 rules to deport asylum seekers under emergency pandemic rules will stand going forward
A 16-Year-Old Boy Is Suing The Trump Administration, Claiming It's Using The Pandemic As An Excuse To Deport Him
The teen is the first to challenge an unprecedented policy put in place amid the coronavirus pandemic that has all but shut down asylum at the southern border.
Hamed Aleaziz BuzzFeed News Reporter
Last updated on June 10, 2020
John Moore / Getty Images
Unaccompanied immigrant minors wait to be transported to a US Border Patrol processing center in July 2019.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations filed a lawsuit in federal court on Wednesday challenging a controversial Trump administration policy that has turned back thousands of immigrants at the southern border, including children apprehended alone and asylum-seekers.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, DC, was filed on behalf of a 16-year-old Honduran boy who fled to the US to seek protection from persecution in his home country. The teen, who is seeking to stop his imminent deportation, is the first to challenge an unprecedented policy that has all but shut down asylum at the southern border.
The ACLU also filed a second lawsuit challenging the policy on behalf of a 13-year-old girl from El Salvador who has already been deported under the new measures after coming to the US in April. She had fled El Salvador because she was targeted by gangs that had previously threatened her mother, a former police officer, the complaint states.
“During her apprehension, she fell into the Rio Grande River because she was trying to get away from CBP patrol dogs. CBP sent her to the hospital,” the suit, which was also filed in federal court in Washington, DC, states.
The girl was later deported on April 27.
Meanwhile, the threat of persecution and torture to the girl "is imminent and real," her lawyers wrote.
"El Salvador has one of the highest murder rates in the world and in particular gender-motivated killings of women and girls,” they added.
Administration officials have said they are following public health orders designed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in the US, but advocates like the ACLU say they are using the health orders to violate federal laws that govern the processing of unaccompanied minors.
Department of Homeland Security officials have turned around thousands of immigrants, including children, at the southern border by using a March order issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that bars the entry of those who cross into the country without authorization.
Previously, unaccompanied children from Central America picked up by Border Patrol agents would be sent to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), where they would be housed in shelters across the country as they began officially applying for asylum and waited to be reunited with family members in the US.
But those referrals have dipped since the issuance of the CDC order and the agency received just 58 children for the entire month of April — lower than the average number of referrals in a single day in the period prior to the order. Instead, unaccompanied children at the border are turned back and deported by Department of Homeland Security officials under the CDC order.
“The Administration’s use of [the CDC order] is a transparent end-run around Congress’s considered decision to provide protection to children and others fleeing danger even where communicable disease is a concern—and to address that concern through the use of testing and quarantines, not deportation,” read the ACLU’s lawsuit.
The ORR referral process was created by the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which was signed by then-president George W. Bush in 2008. Under the law, US Customs and Border Protection officials are generally required to refer the children within 72 hours to the US refugee agency.
The 16-year-old Honduran boy facing expulsion has been in CBP custody since June 4, according to the lawsuit. He fled the Central American country, attorneys said, after witnessing a murder and gang members threatened him afterward. His father lives in the US.
Advocates said the use of the CDC order is “extreme in seeking to eliminate statutory protections for vulnerable non-citizens and children. And it is not only a ban on entry, but provides for summary expulsion for those who entered the country.”
They also note in the lawsuit that the US is already dealing with an outbreak of the disease.
“Despite Defendants’ claimed fear of ‘introducing’ infected individuals into the country, the United States is experiencing an outbreak of COVID-19 that is substantially more serious than most of its neighbors,” the lawsuit read. “This country has the highest COVID-19 death toll and one of the highest infection rates in the entire world. As of June 7, 2020, the United States had over 1.94 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, a rate of 5.91 people per thousand.”
The ACLU is requesting the order be declared unlawful as it applied to the 16-year-old child and to stop them from using it against him.
The deportation has temporarily been put on hold for 24 hours after advocates and the government came to an agreement.
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Hamed Aleaziz · March 30, 2020
Hamed Aleaziz is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in San Francisco.
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