Biden administration ends Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy after court lifts injunction

The Biden administration will end a Trump-era policy requiring asylum seekers at the U.S. southern border to stay in Mexico while they await immigration hearings in U.S. courts, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

President Joe Biden attempted to end the “remain in Mexico” policy when he first took office in January 2021, but was blocked by a federal judge, who ordered his administration to continue the practice. That order was lifted on Monday.

“We welcome the U.S. District Court’s decision, which follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 30th decision, to lift the injunction that required DHS to reimplement the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) in good faith,” a Homeland Security statement said. “DHS is committed to ending the court-ordered implementation of MPP in a quick, and orderly, manner.”

Individuals will no longer be newly enrolled into the program. Meanwhile, migrants currently in Mexico will be removed from the program at their next court hearing, the department said.

Individuals taken off the program will continue their immigration proceedings in the United States.

“MPP has endemic flaws, imposes unjustifiable human costs, and pulls resources and personnel away from other priority efforts to secure our border,” the Homeland Security statement added. “The department will provide additional information in the coming days. MPP enrollees should follow the directions on their court documents and tear sheets to appear for their scheduled court date as required.”

The department said the recent order does not affect Title 42, a public health regulation that both the Trump and Biden administrations have invoked during the COVID-19 pandemic to remove asylum seekers and immigrants who present themselves to U.S. authorities at the southwest land border.

Randolph McGrorty, executive director of Miami-based Catholic Legal Services, said that the Biden administration ended a “human catastrophe” by reversing the Remain in Mexico program.

Over 60 immigration rights and legal service groups argued to the U.S. Supreme Court in a brief in March that Remain in Mexico had endangered kids, separated migrant families and allowed human trafficking.

Human Rights First, one of the advocacy organizations that participated in the Supreme Court brief, says it has documented over 1,500 cases between February 2019 and February 2021 in which immigrants in Mexico enrolled in the program had been victims of rape, torture, murder, robbery, kidnapping and other violence.

“Despite the hype, public relations, marketing … Remain in Mexico actually made our borders less secure. People were desperate because of the humanitarian squalor they found themselves in. So rather than presenting themselves at the border, they attempted irregular crossings dangerously through the desert,” McGrorty said.

He added that although it remained to be seen how the Biden administration would handle the termination, it was an opportunity to “create order of the chaos” at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Jennifer Anzardo Valdes, director of the Children’s Legal Program at Americans for Immigrant Justice, told the Miami Herald that Monday’s development was “very welcome news.” Her organization has heard “horrific stories” of kidnappings, threats, assaults, and more happening to people enrolled in the program while in Mexico.

“We had kids whose parents would go out to find work and wouldn’t return back to the campsites,” she said.

U.S. Rep Debbie Wasserman Schultz celebrated the end of the program, telling the Miami Herald in a statement that the Migrant Protocols Program had been a “heartless policy.”

“I applaud President Biden’s drive to undo this cruel Trump-era policy, one that forced thousands of non-Mexican asylum seekers, including infants and children, into squalid, dangerous conditions which I witnessed firsthand at the border,” she said.

Meanwhile, in mid-July U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez of Miami introduced a bill to make the program a federal law. The Republican said in a statement at the time that the Migrant Protocols Program “made sense,” “worked” and kept U.S. communities and families safer. He described the Biden administration’s decision to end the program as “weak and gutless.”

“If the true intent of these migrants is to seek refuge from brutal regimes and harsh living conditions in their home countries, then it would make sense for them to apply for asylum in Mexico rather than engage in the dangerous and treacherous journey to the United States,” he said.

This story was originally published August 9, 2022 at 4:04 PM.