Fordham Law alumnus Angelo Guisado ’12, along with two of his fellow attorneys from the Center for Constitutional Rights, earlier this month filed a lawsuit accusing U.S. border agents of systematically denying refugees their right to seek asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.
On July 12, Guisado, along with his colleagues at CCR, the American Immigration Council, and Latham & Watkins LLP, brought a proposed class action lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection in the Central District of California. The lawsuit alleges that agents of both the DHS and CBP have consistently misinformed asylum-seekers of their right to seek refuge in the United States, denying them basic access to the asylum process.
“The DHS and the CBP used a whole number of unlawful tactics to reject asylum seekers,” says Guisado. “Generally, an asylum seeker would present herself at a port of entry and say, ‘I’m afraid to go back to my home country. I’m here in the United States, I’d like to seek asylum.’ And at the very least [CBP] has to give the individual the right to apply. What we saw was people being lied to, coerced, and in some cases being physically removed from ports of entry.”