Chris Lange, FISM News
The Biden administration plans to reinstate Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy by the middle of next month according to White House officials.
The announcement came Thursday following the U.S. Supreme Court’s August decision to uphold a Federal court ruling that the administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act in its rush to abolish the Trump-era policy. “Migrant Protection Protocols” (MPP) as it is formally named, requires asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while awaiting case outcomes. The lower court’s determination was made in response to a Republican-led lawsuit on behalf of Texas and Missouri challenging the administration on the policy reversal.
The court’s ruling dealt a decisive blow to President Biden who rescinded the program on his inauguration day. The decision requires Biden to reinstate MPP “in good faith.” In the meantime, The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has appealed the Supreme Court’s decision and is currently crafting a new memo in another attempt to stop the program.
According to a report by “The Hill,” the announcement from the White House follows a series of talks between the Biden administration and Mexican government officials.
“Mexico is a sovereign nation that must make an independent decision to accept the return of individuals without status in Mexico as part of any reimplementation of MPP,” the DHS said in a statement Thursday. “Discussions with the Government of Mexico concerning when and how MPP will be reimplemented are ongoing.”
According to Reuters, a senior official with Mexico’s foreign ministry said he has a “number of concerns” about the reimplementation of MPP. Front and center are issues of migrant safety, migrant access to legal assistance, and due process. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Mexican official told reporters that “no decision” has been made yet about restarting the program. Mexico has also raised concerns over U.S. coordination of MPP in terms of providing its government with sufficient notice before expelling migrants into their country.
The Hill also reports that DHS officials have expressed a “general commitment” to rendering decisions in new asylum cases within a period of six months and that plans are underway to erect “tent courts” close to Laredo and Brownsville, Texas. They also plan to expand the allowable number of asylum seekers who are permitted to bypass MPP, though no details about who that might include have been released.
President Trump enacted the Migrant Protection Plan in 2019 in response to increasing numbers of fraudulent asylum claims and to address the issue of migrants electing to remain in the U.S. illegally by skipping court hearings on their asylum eligibility.
Immigration advocates have argued that the policy creates unnecessary delays in migrant processing, resulting in prolonged exposure to violence and kidnappings in border cities where they stay, sometimes for months, in makeshift encampments.
President Biden doubled down on his decision to end the policy during a March press conference, saying “I make no apologies for ending programs that did not exist before Trump became president that have an incredibly negative impact on the law — international law — as well as on human dignity. And so I make no apologies for that.”