by Eric Lendrum
The far-left American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced its intention to sue the White House after Joe Biden announced a new executive order that would ostensibly reduce access to the asylum system for illegal aliens.
According to Axios, the ACLU had made preparations for such a lawsuit even before Biden officially announced the executive order, which he signed on Tuesday. There had been leaks to the press in the days ahead of the order confirming many details of the plan.
“We intend to sue. A ban on asylum is illegal just as it was when Trump unsuccessfully tried it,” said Lee Gelernt, a civil rights lawyer at the ACLU, following the announcement of the executive order.
But the Biden White House, apparently having expected such challenges, has prepared to defend the executive order in court and with certain caveats in its implementation. For example, the order’s parameters will only activate when there is a certain number of illegal border crossings; the order also includes “humanitarian exemptions.”
Biden’s order has also been criticized by conservatives, who say it does nothing to address the underlying problems that have led to a historic surge in illegals flooding across the border. The order has also been accused of implementing a sort of soft amnesty on hundreds of thousands of illegals who had pending asylum cases, by simply dismissing the cases altogether without making a clear ruling one way or another, thus allowing the illegals to go free.
The border crisis and immigration as a whole has consistently remained the top concern for voters, according to exit polling throughout the presidential primaries this year. Former President Donald Trump has vowed to carry out a massive deportation operation and finish building the southern border wall if he is returned to the White House this November.
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Eric Lendrum is a reporter for American Greatness.
