An Immigration Attorney at the ACLU on Fighting President Trump’s Asylum Bans

Jonathan Blitzer in the New Yorker interviews 

“Lee Gelernt, a lawyer with the A.C.L.U., who is leading the litigation against both of Trump’s asylum bans. The Trump Administration has insisted that there is a right and a wrong way for immigrants to come to the U.S; the converse of that argument is that there is also a right and a wrong way for the U.S. government to make immigration policy. According to Gelernt, the recent asylum bans have failed to meet the most basic standards laid out by Congress in the Refugee Act of 1980 and the Administrative Procedure Act, which invalidates policies that are `arbitrary and capricious.’ Now, Gelernt said, `there are so many different policies in place, at so many different stages of litigation,’ that the over-all effect is approaching a kind of chaos. `It’s becoming difficult to figure out which policies are in place, which are enjoined, which are partially enjoined, and what it all means,’ he said.”

Read more of the interview and a summary of the Trump administration’s various asylum policies and the litigation challenges.

KJ