Under the Refugee Act of 1980, Congress required the executive branch to establish a process for any asylum-seeker physically present in the country to seek asylum. It also prohibited government officials from sending noncitizens to places where their “life or freedom would be threatened.” In the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, Congress once again standardized the nation’s asylum procedures. That law required the executive branch to exempt from expedited removal anyone who expressed a credible fear of persecution, and entitled asylum-seekers to interviews with specially trained asylum officers to determine whether their fears were credible. The goal of these provisions was to make sure that the government would not force people with potentially valid asylum claims back to countries in which they faced persecution without first considering their claims. 

The Trump Administration nonetheless issued a Proclamation and related guidance which state that certain noncitizens present in the United States are “invading” the country and therefore are not permitted to apply for asylum and are ineligible for withholding of removal, and can even be “repatriated” outside of the standard removal proceedings after entering the country. A coalition of immigrants’ rights organizations brought suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The District Court agreed that the Proclamation was unlawful, and the Administration appealed to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. 

In September 2025, CAC filed an amicus brief in the D.C. Circuit explaining that the Proclamation and guidance are unlawful for three reasons. 

First, the sections of law that the Trump Administration relies upon do not give the President the power to remove people from the country. Most significantly. § 1182(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”) provides that the President can “suspend the entry” of anyone whose entry “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.”  While this provision authorizes the President to impose entry restrictions, it does not empower the government to “repatriate” noncitizens who are already within the country’s borders. Indeed, when Congress enacted § 1182(f), it made clear that it was aware of the distinction between regulating the entry of noncitizens and removing those who are already within the country.  Lawmakers emphasized that these were distinct legal processes and provided a “sole and exclusive” procedure for removing noncitizens from the country after they entered.  

Second, the Proclamation upends Congress’s deliberate decisions about how the nation’s asylum system should operate. Congress passed laws to limit the executive’s control of asylum admissions and guarantee each asylum-seeker the opportunity to have the government consider their claim. It sought to replace an ad-hoc system driven by the executive branch’s discretion—exactly the kind of system Trump is attempting to bring back. Over the decades, Congress has reiterated that all asylum-seekers are entitled to individualized assessment of their claims to prevent them from being summarily returned to a country where they would face persecution. 

Finally, the Trump Administration’s arguments supporting the Proclamation are without merit. The Supreme Court decisions it cites actually underscore that the INA’s protections apply to non-citizens present in the country. The Court has held that asylum-seekers, regardless of whether they entered the country lawfully, are entitled to the rights Congress has defined by statute.  

In April 2026, the D.C. Circuit held that the “text, structure, and history” of the INA “make clear” that the Trump Administration’s Proclamation defied Congress’s plan for the country’s immigration system. Closely echoing our brief, the three-judge panel agreed that § 1182(f) does not confer a power to “unilaterally and heedlessly return individuals even to countries where they will most certainly face persecution.” The court therefore held that the Proclamation is unlawful insofar as it circumvents “Congress’s carefully crafted removal procedures and cast aside federal laws that afford individuals the opportunity to apply” for asylum