WASHINGTON (CN) — President Joe Biden persuaded the Supreme Court on Friday to consider his move to unravel a federal policy that forces people seeking U.S. asylum to wait out their determinations in Mexico.
Officially known as Migrant Protection Protocols but better known as Remain in Mexico, the policy launched in January 2019 with the Trump administration saying it would prevent the “catch and release” of migrants into the U.S. For immigration advocates, however, it has morphed into a humanitarian disaster.
Whereas before immigrants could stay in the U.S. while their asylum claims were processed, the new policy does not allow then across the border. The Mexican government has promised to provide protection for the immigrants, but many have faced violence at the hands of criminal organizations and corrupt Mexican law enforcement while forced into squalid tent camps at the border.
With the election of President Joe Biden, MPP seemed to be on its way out. The program was suspended on Biden’s first day in office, and the Secretary of Homeland Security formally terminated it in June of last year.
Texas and Missouri then revived the policy with a suit against the Biden administration, arguing that the policy’s termination led to increased health care, education, social services and law enforcement costs because of an increase in undocumented immigrants.
MMP was restored after a one-day bench trial and ruling from U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, whom Trump installed in 2019. Biden fought the ruling, but both the Fifth Circuit and the Supreme Court blocked relief — the latter this past August in a 6-3 ruling. Biden has returned to the high court after a Fifth Circuit panel rejected his next appeal in December.
In the petition for a writ of certiorari, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar says the Department of Homeland Security should not have to maintain a program that it considers contrary to U.S. interests.
“The lower courts have commanded DHS to implement and enforce the short-lived and controversial MPP program in perpetuity,” Prelogar wrote. “And they have done so despite determinations by the politically accountable Executive Branch that MPP is not the best tool for deterring unlawful migration; that MPP exposes migrants to unacceptable risks; and that MPP detracts from the Executive’s foreign-relations efforts to manage regional migration. Worse yet, the court of appeals has effectively precluded consideration of the Secretary’s operative explanation of those concerns.”
The government contends that the lower court intruded on the power of the executive branch to make immigration decisions and conduct foreign relations. Forcing the administration to maintain MPP means that the courts have interfered in America's bilateral relationship with Mexico, the government says.
“By requiring the Executive to engage in ongoing negotiations with a foreign sovereign over the contours of a border-wide immigration program, the lower courts effected a major and ‘unwarranted judicial interference in the conduct of foreign policy’ and executive prerogative,” Prelogar wrote. “The injunction forces the Executive to prioritize MPP negotiations over other collaborative efforts that the Secretary believes will yield better results in managing immigration and border security.”





