COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) — Advocates for immigrant children are suing to block the Trump administration from enforcing a new policy that they say would erode legal protections for thousands of unaccompanied children seeking asylum in the U.S.
A federal class action filed Monday in Maryland claims a May 31 memorandum issued by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services dramatically curtails asylum provisions for unaccompanied immigrant children.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys are seeking a temporary restraining order benefiting all asylum seekers affected by the policy change, which was scheduled to take effect June 30. Their lawsuit claims the memo violates a 2008 law that protects children entering the U.S. without a parent or other legal guardian.
USCIS spokesman Daniel Hetlage said in an email Tuesday that the agency doesn’t comment on pending litigation. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its acting secretary and USCIS and its acting director are named as defendants in the suit.
Attorneys from Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc., Kids in Need of Defense, the Goodwin Procter LLP law firm and Public Counsel are representing four children who are named plaintiffs identified only their initials.
Asylum applicants typically must file their petitions within one year of entering the U.S, but the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 exempts unaccompanied children from that deadline, according to the lawsuit. The 2008 law gives unaccompanied children the right to pursue asylum relief through a “child-friendly, non-adversarial process” administered by USCIS, the suit says.
But the new USCIS policy requires asylum officers to “redetermine” whether an applicant met the legal definition of an unaccompanied child when they filed, “even if that filing date was years ago, when the prior policy was in effect,” the lawsuit says.
The previous policy, in place since 2013, didn’t require applicants to show that they had filed within one year or qualified for an exception to that deadline.
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