Can a government switch off the right to claim asylum at its border?
Litigation and advocacy against transit bans, entry restrictions, and rules that close the asylum door.
What worked, what failed, what is reusable.
Tie the rule to the statute. East Bay Sanctuary and Innovation Law Lab both ran on the gap between an executive rule and what the immigration statute actually allows. The administrative-law and statutory-consistency arguments did the work, not sympathy.
Protect the act of applying. Ruta (South Africa) held the right to apply for asylum survives delay and even a criminal conviction; the Refugees Act read with non-refoulement governs over deportation. The win was procedural: you cannot be removed before your claim is heard.
The movement half. #WelcomeWithDignity coordinated the US civil-society response to asylum bans; the Canadian Council for Refugees fought the Safe Third Country Agreement. Both kept a public counter-narrative alive while the litigation ran.
Reusable kit: challenge the rule as beyond the statute (East Bay), defend the right to apply as distinct from the right to stay (Ruta), and pair litigation with a standing rapid-response coalition.
Research resource, not legal advice. Read the original source before acting. Cases and campaigns are gathered by shared issue tags; some may be machine-extracted and pending human review.