ACLU Asks for Injunction to Stop Trump’s Muslim Ban From Separating Refugees From Their Families
On November 6, 2017, the ACLU of Washington filed a motion in federal court seeking a Preliminary Injunction on behalf of Plaintiff Joseph Doe, a refugee living in Washington state who wants to be reunited with his wife and children, and all others in Washington in similar situations. It challenges the administration’s latest Muslim Travel Ban restrictions, which will indefinitely prevent children and spouses from being allowed to join refugees already admitted to the U.S.
“These steps exceed the authority of the administration, have no basis in fact or logic, and will do nothing to make our nation more secure,” said Emily Chiang, ACLU of Washington Legal Director.
Plaintiff Joseph Doe is a Somali national and legal permanent resident who is married and has three children. When he was a child, he and his family fled Somalia’s violent civil war to escape persecution and the risk of being killed because of their clan membership. While trying to reach safety, they spent weeks in the forest without food, and fighters from one of the warring factions found them and raped his older sister in front of him and his family. She was pregnant and bled to death from the assault. Eventually, Doe and his surviving family members made it to Kenya, where he spent nearly 22 years living in refugee camps.
Doe arrived in the U.S. as a refugee in January 2014 but had to leave his wife and children in Kenya—because his application was initiated when he was still a child. He filed a petition for them to join him after he arrived here but has now been separated from his family for almost four years. His family has already gone through exhaustive medical and security screening by the U.S government and but they have been living in limbo since Trump’s first Executive Order on Immigration was issued in January 2017.
While Doe, now a legal permanent resident, supports his family through his full-time job at a warehouse, the continued separation has caused both him and his family tremendous distress. He regularly talks to his family on the phone. His youngest son, now four years old, constantly cries for him, asking, “Where are you? Why can’t you come for us?”
“The government’s actions are but the latest installment in a series of executive orders that courts across the country have repeatedly condemned for targeting Muslim immigrants and refugees,” said Tana Lin, ACLU of Washington cooperating attorney with the firm Keller Rohrback L.L.P.
Under the Immigration & Nationality Act (INA), which is a federal statute created by Congress, people admitted to the U.S. as refugees have a right to be reunited with their spouses and children as long as they satisfy the government’s rigorous vetting process, which often takes two years to complete.
On October 24, 2017, President Trump issued an executive order in which he proclaimed that “Presidential action to suspend the entry of refugees under the USRAP is not needed at this time to protect the security and interests of the United States and its people.” (USRAP is the United States Refugee Admissions Program.) But an October 23, 2017 memorandum from the heads of three administrative agencies makes clear the administration intends to continue its illegal ban: it announces an indefinite suspension on the admission of refugees’ family members who are entitled to admission by the INA.
“The Administration’s policy is ripping apart families and heartlessly keeping refugees who have survived traumatic situations from reuniting with loved ones,” Enoka Herat, ACLU of Washington Police Practices and Immigration Counsel.
The motion for a Preliminary Injunction comes in a class-action lawsuit (Doe v. Trump) that was filed on February 7, 2017, in federal court in the Western District of Washington. Plaintiffs include a number of people whose lives have been directly impacted by the Muslim Ban and two organizations: the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Washington, whose work has been greatly impacted by the Order’s violation of the First Amendment’s establishment of religion clause; and the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia, whose efforts to fulfill its religious mission of serving refugees have been severely harmed by the ban.
The motion challenges different aspects of the Muslim Ban than those already enjoined by courts in response to litigation filed by various attorneys general in the District Court of Hawaii and by the ACLU in Maryland.
Representing the Plaintiffs are ACLU-WA Legal Director Emily Chiang and staff attorney Lisa Nowlin; and ACLU-WA cooperating attorneys Lynn Lincoln Sarko, Tana Lin, Amy Williams-Derry, Derek Loeser, Alison Gaffney, Laurie Ashton, and Alison Chase of Keller Rohrback L.L.P.
Read more about the case here.