A coalition of nearly a dozen states is filing a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s policy that allows for immigrant children to be separated from their parents at the southern border.
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who is leading the group, announced Thursday the lawsuit will be filed imminently in federal court in Seattle.
“This is a rogue, cruel, and unconstitutional policy,” Ferguson said in a statement. “We’re going to put a stop to it.”
The lawsuit against the Trump administration will claim the administration’s family separation policy is unconstitutional and “irrationally discriminatory,” as it specifically targets people illegally crossing the southern border and not those illegally crossing the northern border.
The multistate lawsuit will also claim the Trump administration violated federal asylum laws by turning immigrants away at ports of entry.
[Related: New York to sue Trump administration over family separations at the border]
The lawsuit was initially supposed to be filed Thursday, but it is currently being amended due to the executive order President Trump signed Wednesday that is meant to end the family separations.
Ferguson and his fellow state attorneys general are urging the president to fix what they say are “egregious flaws” in the executive order. They also want him to implement a process for family reunification and stop its practice of refusing to accept asylum petitions at the southern border.
Under a 1997 settlement agreement from the case Flores v. Reno, the government cannot hold children in family detention centers for more than 20 days.
But Trump’s executive order seeks to end the family separations by allowing parents and children to remain in detention centers together during criminal proceedings. The president’s order directs the attorney general to file a request with a federal court in California to modify the Flores agreement to allow for children to be detained with their parents beyond 20 days.
The Justice Department formally filed the request Thursday.
Ferguson’s office claims the executive order fails to address the reunification of families who were separated due to the administration’s policy and does not apply to children who were already separated from their parents. He said Thursday the order is “riddled with so many caveats that he essentially makes it meaningless.”
The states that have joined the lawsuit are Massachusetts, Iowa, California, Maryland, Oregon, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Minnesota. Ferguson’s office said more states are expected to sign on.
[Also read: Governors pledge not to send National Guard troops, resources to southern border due to family separation]
