A coalition group advocating for immigrants has requested a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration policy that requires immigrants who are seeking asylum to remain in Mexico until their applications are processed.
According to the advocacy group, the asylum seekers “are being returned to Mexico without any meaningful consideration of the dangers they face there, including the very real threat that Mexican authorities will return them to the countries they fled to escape persecution and torture,” The Hill reported.
Secretary of the DHS, Kirstjen Nielsen, has stated that this policy is known as the MPP (Migrant Protection Protocols), and that authorities have found it to be necessary to fight what the President has said to be a humanitarian crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.
According to CNN, around 93 people went back to Mexico under the policy, including 13 families, and CNN is adding that officials have only begun “rolling out the policy last month.”
In its lawsuit, the advocacy group has argued that this MPP is a violation of both international and U.S. laws.
Attorneys representing the groups include lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Judy Rabinovitz, an attorney with the ACLU, told CNN that the policy has “got to be stopped.”
“It’s illegal and inhuman, and hopefully that’s what the judge will do,” Rabinovitz said.
Organizations challenging the policy include the Innovation Law Lab, the Central American Resource Center of Northern California, the Centro Legal de la Raza, the Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic at the University of San Francisco School of Law, Al Otro Lado and the Tahirih Justice Center.
Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security officials did not immediately return CNN’s requests for comment.
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