A U.S. judge in San Francisco will scrutinize the Trump administration's policy of returning asylum seekers to Mexico during a court hearing Friday to help him decide whether to block the practice.
Civil rights groups have asked Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco to put the asylum policy on hold while their lawsuit moves forward. Seeborg was not expected to rule immediately.
The policy began in January at the San Ysidro border crossing in San Diego, marking an unprecedented change to the U.S. asylum system . Families seeking asylum are typically released in the U.S. with notices to appear in immigration court.
The administration later expanded the policy to the Calexico port of entry, about 120 miles east of the San Ysidro crossing.
The lawsuit on behalf of 11 asylum seekers from Central America and legal advocacy groups says the administration is violating U.S. law by failing to adequately evaluate the dangers that migrants face in Mexico.
It also accuses Homeland Security and immigration officials of depriving migrants of their right to apply for asylum by making it difficult or impossible to do so.
"Instead of being able to focus on preparing their cases, asylum seekers forced to return to Mexico will have to focus on trying to survive," according to the lawsuit filed in February by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies.
The Trump administration hopes that making asylum seekers wait in Mexico will discourage weak claims and help reduce an immigration court backlog of more than 800,000 cases.
The Justice Department said in court documents that the policy "responds to a crisis of aliens, many of whom may have unmeritorious asylum claims, overwhelming the executive's immigration-detention capacity, being released into the U.S. to live for many years without establishing an entitlement to relief, and often never appearing for immigration proceedings."
Border Patrol arrests, the most widely used gauge of illegal crossings, have risen sharply over the last year but are relatively low in historical terms after hitting a 46-year low in 2017.
A federal law allows the Homeland Security secretary to return immigrants to Mexico at her discretion, Justice Department officials said in a court filing this month urging Seeborg not to block the policy.
The civil rights groups said that law does not apply to asylum seekers who cross the border illegally or arrive at an entry port without proper documents.
The policy followed months of delicate talks between the U.S. and Mexico. Mexicans and children traveling alone are exempt from it.
