WASHINGTON, D.C. – Attorney General Karl A. Racine today led a group of 21 State Attorneys General to challenge the Trump administration’s proposed changes to asylum standards. If implemented, these changes would allow the Executive branch to arbitrarily deny asylum claims to immigrants seeking haven from domestic or gang violence. In a friend-of-the-court brief filed in Grace v. Barr before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, AG Racine and his counterparts argue that these stringent revisions—which would effectively bar asylum claims based on domestic or gang-related violence—go against longstanding federal law and judicial precedent, undermining the rule of law itself.

“Denying asylum to people fleeing persecution in their home countries will mean forsaking victims of gang and domestic violence, particularly vulnerable women and children, to unspeakable fates,” said AG Racine. “We cannot allow this administration to abandon our values for the sake of their unlawful, fear-based agenda. Our coalition of State Attorneys General is urging the Judiciary to police the administration’s compliance with longstanding statutes and legal precedents, which these changes seek to undermine. The president may believe that he is above the law, but his administration must still follow it.”

The District of Columbia and partner states filed this amicus brief in Grace v. Barr, in support of the plaintiffs’ challenge to the Trump administration’s heightened asylum standards. The lawsuit was first filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, the ACLU of Texas, and the ACLU of D.C., in response to a policy former Attorney General Jeff Sessions implemented in June 2018. 

Sessions articulated this policy change in Matter of A-B-, while intervening in the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA)’s decision to grant a Salvadoran woman asylum based on her claim of spousal abuse. In his ruling, Sessions broke sharply from existing precedent to argue that BIA should reject asylum claims regarding domestic or gang violence. Shortly after, the United States Customs and Immigration Service issued guidelines for implementing this policy, emphasizing denial of such claims.

In December 2018, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia struck down the change, ruling it incompatible with existing law. The Department of Justice is now appealing the ruling in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

In this amicus brief, the states collectively argue that the District Court’s decision to reject the administration’s heightened standards should be upheld, on the basis that:

• The standards violate established federal law: A near categorical bar to asylum claims based on domestic or gang violence, as Matter of A-B- recommends, would illegally prevent victims of such violence from attaining asylum protection. The asylum process is rooted in the Immigration and Nationality Act. Among other things, that legislation makes it legal for anyone who arrives at the U.S. border to apply for asylum over a “well-founded fear of persecution” in one’s home country. Subsequent court cases have validated the legitimacy of claims made based on gang or domestic violence.
   
• The standards are inconsistent with state, federal, and international policies protecting victims of violence: All 50 states have enacted provisions in their criminal and civil codes to protect victims of domestic violence, and the federal government has acknowledged the need to assist immigrant women who have been victimized by domestic violence. Both have dedicated programs and resources to gang violence prevention. Furthermore, in signing the 1967 United Nations Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, the United States vowed to protect individuals escaping persecution. The Trump administration’s policy clashes with these commitments.
   
• The standards restrict states’ abilities to grow their economies: Immigrants make significant contributions to the economy, and American society more broadly. This is evident in D.C., where more than one in seven residents, and one in six workers, is an immigrant. It’s also borne out in study after study, and through recent experience nationwide. For example, nearly half of all new residents in the Great Lakes region between 2000-2015 were foreign-born, arriving at a moment when the region’s population growth lagged behind the national average. This influx of foreign-born residents boosted jobs and wages in the region. Given that the majority of asylum grantees are of working age and can contribute to a state’s economic activity, the Trump administration’s standards would limit states’ access to a valuable source of labor.

AG Racine is leading today’s friend-of-the-court brief and is joined by Attorneys General from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.

The brief as filed in Grace v. Barr is available at: https://oag.dc.gov/sites/default/files/2019-08/Grace-v-Barr-Amicus.pdf

This is the latest effort by AG Racine to protect established federal immigration policy, defend asylum rights, and stand up for immigrants in the District and nationwide. In 2018, AG Racine led a similar coalition of states in filing an amicus brief in this case, then referred to as Grace v. Sessions, while it was under review in the District Court for the District of Columbia. He also joined with other Attorneys General to take action against the Trump administration to protect public safety funding for “sanctuary” cities; prevent attempts to close the Southern border to asylum seekers; block immigration-related conditions on law enforcement grants; stop a cruel family separation policy; keep longtime District residents from El Salvador, Haiti, and Honduras from losing their protected status; fight for hard-working “dreamers” to stay in the United States; and to oppose the “Muslim travel ban.”