On September 20, 2019, two nonprofit organizations, alongside nine individuals, six of whom were also representing their minor children, filed a lawsuit against the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the director and commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the Attorney General of the United States to challenge the new federal expedited-removal immigration policy. The nine individual plaintiffs were all asylum-seekers who were being threatened with expedited removal. The plaintiffs claimed that the new policy violated due process and equal protection under the Fifth Amendment, the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the Suspension Clause (Habeas Corpus), the Appointments Clause, and the Immigration and Nationality Act. The plaintiffs sought to enjoin defendants from continuing this policy and also requested attorney’s fees. The plaintiffs were represented by Lawyers for Civil Rights and Ropes & Gray LLP. The case was heard in the District Court for Washington D.C. and was presided over by Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The new expedited removal rule allowed any foreign citizen who has lived anywhere in the United States for less than two years to be entered into expedited deportation proceedings. Previously, expedited deportation only applied to those who were still within 100 miles of a U.S. international land border and had only been in the United States for two weeks or less.

On October 9, 2019, the court ordered the plaintiffs to show cause for why the case at hand should not be stayed until Make the Road New York v. McAleenan had been resolved. Make the Road New York was a class-action suit filed in the same court by the ACLU that also challenged the legality of the new expedited-removal rule. The plaintiffs responded on October 22, 2019, however this document is not available to the Clearinghouse at this time. The case is ongoing as of October 29, 2019.

Christiana Johnson - 11/02/2019


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