One of the highest values that President Trump and immigration adviser Stephen Miller cherish is the goal of making it as hard as possible for desperate migrants to appeal for refuge in the United States — even if they would qualify for it under U.S. law.
Trump and Miller have gone about this in many devious ways, and one under-the-radar tactic they’ve used is to change the pre-screening process through which migrants apply to enter the asylum system, to make it harder to even get a hearing at all.
Now, however, the union for the asylum officers who administer this process is fighting back: It’s taking the unusual step of filing a friend-of-the-court brief in a lawsuit against the administration the officers work for.
The brief from the asylum workers’ union — the National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council 119, which represents thousands of workers who run the asylum system, including conducting pre-screening interviews — condemns the new policy as arbitrary, illegal and cruel.
