Border agents in the United States stopped Trump-era procedures that obliged some migrants to wait for asylum hearings in Mexico on Monday. The suspension followed a federal court judgment that ended a protracted legal battle over President Biden’s attempts to halt the program.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) declared in a statement that it has halted enrolling migrants in the Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as the “Remain-in-Mexico” program. It also said that it will process migrants who are already registered in the program and let them to continue their asylum petitions inside the United States.
“DHS is dedicated to terminating the court-ordered implementation of MPP in a timely and orderly way,” it said, advising asylum applicants to depend on official government information rather than human traffickers.
A court ruling earlier on Monday enabled the declaration, which came more than a year after the Biden administration initially tried to repeal the Remain-in-Mexico restrictions.
U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk struck aside a judgment he gave last year that forced the Biden administration to restore the Remain-in-Mexico guidelines, which had been halted on President Biden’s first day in office in January 2021, in a one-page order published Monday afternoon.
Earlier in the day, Justice Department attorneys for the Biden administration requested Kacsmaryk to vacate his August 2021 rule, noting the Supreme Court’s decision in June to reject Republican officials’ legal arguments in Texas and Missouri that Kacsmaryk supported in his order last year.
Although the Supreme Court issued its decision on June 30, it did not become legally binding until August 1, and the Biden administration had to overcome several legal obstacles before asking Kacsmaryk to vacate his order, including a decision from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled against the administration last year.
While Monday’s ruling is a legal triumph for asylum-seekers who have branded the Remain-in-Mexico policy harsh and draconian, it will have little influence on current U.S. border policy since the Biden administration had only enrolled a tiny fraction of migrants in the program.
According to official statistics, 5,764 migrants have been returned to Mexico under the Migrant Protection Protocols since they were reintroduced in December 2021. During the same time period, US border officers recorded unprecedented amounts of illegal migration, processing migrants more than 1.4 million times, according to DHS figures.
Migrants in Eagle Pass, Texas, United States
On July 26, 2022, migrants are transferred after waiting in hot weather for US Border Patrol to process them after illegally crossing into Eagle Pass, Texas, from Mexico.
The Trump administration implemented the MPP policy in early 2019, returning 70,000 migrants to Mexico, many of whom had been living in filthy encampments along the US border. Human rights activists documented hundreds of alleged assaults on migrants forced to wait in Mexico, even in places where US authorities advise Americans not to travel due to violent crime and kidnappings.
According to the Trump administration, MPP discouraged migrants seeking better economic prospects from invoking the asylum system to remain and work in the United States. However, on the 2020 campaign road, Mr. Biden called the policy cruel, and DHS halted enrolling migrants in the program on his first day in office.
Mayorkas officially ended the MPP policy in June 2021, claiming it was unsuccessful and put asylum seekers in danger. However, Republican attorneys general from Texas and Missouri filed suit, and Kacsmaryk determined that the administration had terminated the procedures unfairly.
Former President Trump appointee Kacsmaryk compelled the Biden administration to apply the Remain in Mexico procedures “in good faith” until they were properly terminated and the government built up adequate holding facilities to imprison all migrants subject to the 1996 detention legislation.
In response, Mayorkas published a more detailed letter in October, attempting to eliminate the MPP policy for the second time. However, Kacsmaryk’s decision was eventually affirmed by the 5th Circuit, which declined to take Mayorkas’ second termination note into account.
The legal setbacks compelled the Biden administration to resurrect Remain in Mexico in December, though it overhauled the program, requiring officials to ask migrants whether they feared persecution in Mexico before sending them there, providing enrollees with coronavirus vaccines, and exempting certain groups from the policy, including asylum-seekers with severe medical conditions, the elderly, and LGBT members.
Kacsmaryk’s now-defunct order also compelled the Biden administration to cancel a program that permitted 13,000 asylum-seekers already registered in the Remain-in-Mexico program to enter the United States and complete their court proceedings.