(CNN) – The Supreme Court said on Wednesday that the controversial Trump administration "Remain in Mexico" asylum policy can stay in effect while legal challenges play out.
It's a devastating loss for immigrant rights groups who say asylum seekers sent back to Mexico are living in dangerous conditions.
Lawyers for the asylum seekers called the government's policy illegal and said that in the months that it has been in effect "reports of murder, rape, torture kidnapping, and other violent assaults against returned asylum seekers have climbed."
Judy Rabinovitz, special counsel in the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, said asylum seekers remain in "grave danger" due to the policy.
"Asylum seekers face grave danger and irreversible harm every day this depraved policy remains in effect."