The policy has important exceptions, Mr. Francisco wrote. It did not apply, he said, “to any foreigner who is more likely than not to face state-sponsored violence” or “to Mexican nationals or certain particularly vulnerable foreigners such as unaccompanied children”.
In general, however, he wrote that the United States was not obligated, under the treaties it had signed, to protect migrants from “routine criminal acts that do not constitute persecution or torture”.
Blocking the policy would have negative consequences, Mr. Francisco wrote.
“Dealing with a sudden influx of tens of thousands of migrants – each of whom would need to be screened, including for urgent medical issues – would place a huge burden on border authorities and reduce their ability to carry out other critical missions,” a- he writes, “such as protecting against national security threats, detecting and confiscating illicit materials, and ensuring efficient trade and travel.”
Customs and Border Protection officials, fearing that blocking the program could spur large crowds of migrants seeking to enter the United States, took aggressive action, deploying 160 troops to two ports of entry on along the southwest border in Texas and California.
The Supreme Court recently stayed several injunctions issued by lower courts blocking aspects of the administration’s tough new immigration policies. In a pair of recent decisions, for example, the court lifted injunctions that had blocked administration plans to deny green cards to immigrants who risked becoming “public charges” even with casual use and minor public benefits like Medicaid. , food stamps and accommodation vouchers.
The vote was 5 to 4 in both cases, with the more conservative members of the court in the majority. Dissenting from such an order last month, Justice Sotomayor wrote that the administration had moved too quickly to go to the Supreme Court after interim losses in lower courts.
“Claiming for one emergency after another, the government has recently requested stays in an unprecedented number of cases, demanding immediate attention and consuming limited judicial resources in each one,” she wrote. “And with each successive candidacy, of course, his cries of urgency ring more and more hollow.”
