Joe Biden Deports Trump's 'Remain In Mexico' Policy

Letting asylum seekers actually seek asylum seems like a good idea.

The US Department of Homeland Security announced this week it will finally end Donald Trump's "Remain in Mexico" policy, after the Supreme Court ruled in June that the administration could go ahead and do so. That means that immigration officials will no longer send immigrants seeking asylum back to Mexico to wait until their asylum cases have been finally decided — which can take years.

Trump put the policy in place in January 2019, fundamentally changing how people were treated when they arrived at ports of entry and asked for asylum, as is their right under US and international law. Instead of allowing these now-legal immigrants to stay in the US while their cases went forward, as had always been the practice, Trump pressured Mexico to accept them while they waited for court dates in the US — and even after a successful initial hearing, the asylum seekers would be sent back to Mexico while the case was adjudicated. Most ended up in dirty, crime-ridden improvised camps, where they were preyed on by cartel kidnappers. About 70,000 people were subjected to that madness under Trump's misrule. The immigrant rights legal group RAICES explains how the program, with the Orwellian name "Migrant Protection Protocol" (MPP), put people fleeing for their lives in even more danger:

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President Biden had ended the policy by executive order on his first day in office, as he'd promised during the campaign, but then a bunch of Republican governors sued to have the policy reinstated , which led to a Trump-appointed federal judge, Matthew Kacsmaryk, issuing an order last August telling the administration to reinstate the policy. In one of those weird "shadow docket" rulings, the Supreme Court upheld Kacsmaryk's order while the case went forward, forcing the Biden administration to reinstate a program that it wanted to end. Between December 2021 and July, roughly 5,800 more asylum seekers were sent back to Mexico to wait, although at least folks who'd started the asylum process up until Kacsmaryk's ruling weren't affected.

Ultimately, the Supremes ruled in a 5-4 decision June 30 that the Biden administration actually did have the power to rescind Trump's executive action, and after the decision was certified last week , Kacsmaryk lifted his order. Then DHS was able to formally end the program Monday; the agency said it would immediately stop removing people who pass the initial asylum screening, and that those currently in Mexico will be allowed to enter the US on the day of their court date, and if the hearing goes their way, they and their families can stay in the US while the case is adjudicated.

In a statement, DHS said the program will be dismantled in a “quick, and orderly manner,” adding that it would release further details of how that'll be done soon. As the Guardian reports, DHS said

The policy “has endemic flaws, imposes unjustifiable human costs, and pulls resources and personnel away from other priority efforts to secure our border.”

There's still a lot of details to be ironed out, however:

Many questions remain, including whether those whose claims have been denied or dismissed will get a second chance or if those whose next court dates are months away will be allowed to return to the US sooner, where many immigration courts are struggling with backlogs and staff shortages . DHS said it will provide additional information “in the coming days”.

In an interview with NPR this morning, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director of the American Immigration Council, noted that most asylum seekers sent to Mexico under the Trump program had their asylum cases terminated, but that after Biden's executive order ending it, about 13,000 were allowed to pursue their cases in the US. Being forced to stay in the border camps, he noted, meant that people had to "run a gauntlet of kidnappers" just to get back to a port of entry for their court dates, which many missed because they ended up being victims of crime, or just gave up and went back to their home countries — which was exactly what Trump's immigration gauleiter Steven Miller wanted. But hey, if someone was kidnapped and missed their hearing, they must not have card much about showing up in court, right?

Reichlin-Melnick added that there are thousands of documented cases of "violent assault, kidnapping, rape, and even murders" against people the US "protected" by sending them to wait in Mexico under the "Migrant Protection Protocol."

He also noted that "Remain in Mexico" was relatively small potatoes in terms of how it affected asylum seekers compared to Title 42, the "public health" program that immediately deports most adult border crossers without even allowing them to request asylum. He said that less than one percent of people sent back to Mexico since December were subject to MPP; the rest were swiftly returned under Title 42. Perversely, the closure of ports of entry has meant that asylum seekers can't just come across the border in an orderly manner to request asylum; instead, they take their chances with coyotes or crossing the Rio Grande, risking death because they want to get rich taking jobs Americans won't do (yes we are editorializing there).

We suppose maybe someday the US might actually update its immigration laws to bring some sort of justice and order to all this, but that might entail letting brown people come to the US, and the Right can't have that.

[ Texas Tribune / AP / Human Rights First / Guardian / NPR ]

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