June 23, 2022
By Nicole Rosenthal
A nonprofit organization backed the Biden administration’s bid to toss a proposed class action accusing border patrol officers of whipping Haitian migrants and wrongfully denying them asylum, telling a D.C. federal court that the constitutional protections the migrants claim are overridden by COVID-19 concerns and a public health order.
In response to allegations that the Biden administration singled out Haitian migrants and violated their rights to due process and equal protection while implementing the Title 42 public health order denying entry to migrants without travel documents during the pandemic, the Immigration Reform Law Institute submitted an amicus brief arguing the order as designed did not violate the Fifth Amendment, and national public health interests supersede asylum applications. The D.C.-based group that advocated for reduced immigration said that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services action closing the borders in March 2020 was a justified response to the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the migrant’s argument that the pandemic closure was used as a “cudgel” to deny thousands of Haitians the opportunity to seek asylum, consistent with the U.S.’s “long history of anti-Haitian and anti-Black immigration policies.”
Read the full story at Law360.
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