Migrants are processed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at the Paso Del Norte Bridge after receiving an appointment to seek asylum through the CBP One app in El Paso, Texas, on Nov. 7, 2024.
San Diego, California – A coalition of immigration advocates filed a federal class-action lawsuit in San Diego on Wednesday, challenging a Trump-era proclamation that effectively ended access to asylum at official U.S. ports of entry. The legal complaint seeks to restore a path forward for thousands of asylum seekers who, according to plaintiffs, were abruptly cut off from the legal process the moment Donald Trump returned to the White House.
Filed by the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, the American Immigration Council, Democracy Forward, and the Center for Constitutional Rights, the lawsuit represents nonprofit groups Al Otro Lado and Haitian Bridge Alliance, along with asylum seekers left in legal limbo. Among them is a woman who fled Mexico after testifying in a cartel case—only to have her U.S. asylum appointment canceled on January 20. Forced into hiding, she and her husband are now emblematic of what the plaintiffs describe as an “illegal blockade” on asylum.
Unlike earlier litigation focused on migrants who have already crossed into the United States, this lawsuit centers on individuals still waiting at the border—people who attempted to follow the law by using the CBP One mobile app to secure appointments at ports of entry, only to have their scheduled interviews invalidated.
The core of the lawsuit contests Trump’s January 20 proclamation, which argued that asylum screenings at the border were “wholly ineffective” and enabled “innumerable illegal aliens” to enter the U.S. Immigration advocates say that reasoning misrepresents the purpose and legal structure of asylum, transforming a humanitarian safeguard into a security loophole.
“Nothing in the INA or any other source of law permits Defendants’ actions,” the complaint reads, citing the Immigration and Nationality Act. Under current law, asylum is not contingent on holding a visa or passing a background check prior to entry—a key distinction the lawsuit emphasizes.
Al Otro Lado stated that approximately 30,000 people had their appointments canceled following Trump’s proclamation, leaving them stranded in Mexico with no legal path forward.
“We will not accept cruelty as policy,” the group wrote in a statement. “And we will fight—in the courts and with those who risk everything for safety—until this illegal blockade is dismantled.”
Neither Customs and Border Protection nor the Department of Homeland Security responded to requests for comment.
Advocates say this case could restore a vital legal pathway for those who followed the rules but were turned away at the border, not by law, but by executive decree.
