- The Biden administration’s re-enforcement of the Trump-era “stay in Mexico” policy has resulted in dozens of migrants being sent to Mexico daily to await court appearances, according to officials who spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
- The policy resumed in early December, despite numerous attempts by the Biden administration to cancel the program and fight courts that ruled against the administration’s policy.
- “I don’t think registering just 35 of the roughly 5,000 illegal border crossers a day is consistent with the court order,” Brandon Judd, who is chairman of the National Border Patrol Council, told DCNF.
The Biden administration is returning small numbers of migrants to Mexico as it rolls out the revival of the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy, also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), it s has been beaten for months.
The policy requires border officials to send asylum seekers back to stay in Mexico pending immigration court hearings.
The Biden Administration suspended MPP a day after President Joe Biden took office.
The MPP had endemic flaws, imposed unjustifiable human costs, diverted resources and personnel from other priority efforts, and failed to address the root causes of irregular migration.
— Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (@SecMayorkas) October 29, 2021
The policy went into effect on December 6, but is not in full effect, according to officials who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
National Border Patrol Council Chairman Brandon Judd recently told the DCNF that the program resumed last month in two locations and, when it started, had only a few dozen migrants sent to Mexico a day.
“There are only two places where Border Patrol enrolls illegal border crossers in the MPP,” Judd said. “El Paso, Texas has been registering about 30 people a day for the past month or so and Chula Vista Station in San Diego started registering about 5 people a day on Monday. I don’t think registering just 35 of the roughly 5,000 people who cross the border illegally a day is in line with the court order.
A congressional source confirmed that less than 40 migrants are returned each day.
“With a historic number of encounters on the southwest border, the Biden administration has not made a good faith effort to revive the ‘Stay in Mexico’ policy, nor has it made meaningful attempts to resolve the border crisis it created,” the source said. “Less than 40 migrants are registered with the MPP daily.”
A DHS spokesperson told DCNF that the department was working with the Mexican government “to address safety issues and operational constraints during the restart of the MPP,” adding that they could not reveal any details about the location and the number of initial returns. (RELATED: Border agents encountered increased numbers of migrants in November)
The Trump administration began execution MPP in January 2019 after its introduction in December 2018.
Former Acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Mark Morgan says the low number of returns shows the Biden administration is still reluctant to follow the court order, telling the DCNF that this has no deterrent effect on large numbers. migrants trying to cross the border illegally.
“At the end of the day, it’s very clear that this administration was slow to enforce the court order,” Morgan said. “It’s been over six months now, and all we have to show are a few hundred migrants who have been enrolled in the program.”
Texas and Missouri sued the Biden administration in April, arguing the president illegally halted the program.
In June, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued a note suspend the program. Federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled in August that the MPP had been illegally removed, ordering the Biden administration to reimplement it.
The Biden administration tried to appeal Kacsmaryk’s decision, and the Fifth circuit and supreme courts both separately rejected the stay attempts.
In October, Mayorkas published another note to suspend the program, but has pledged to abide by Kacsmaryk’s decision and not implement the termination until a final decision is made.
“You are 6 months into the program. They only operate in two areas and only a handful per day. So it has no impact,” Morgan said. “When the numbers are so low, while you still allow and release 99% of families who enter our country illegally, the program is worth nothing. The cartels know it, the smugglers know it, the immigrants know it.
“History has shown us time and time again that cartels, smugglers and immigrants know our policies and know the flaws in our system better than most Americans, so they now know it’s all for show, it’s not there’s no substance to the program, and it has very little, if any, impact on the flow,” he added.
The Trump administration, Morgan said, made it clear to the families that they were not going to arrive at the southern border and be released into the country. The old administration sent 60,000 migrants returned to Mexico under the program, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).
“You could see the last 30 days, it didn’t have a single impact on the stream,” Morgan said. “Under the Trump administration, I think we’ve enrolled just over 60,000 migrants in the program. If you look at that, it’s great. And what’s even more important is that we did it all the way, the 2,000 miles to the southwestern border. It took us a little while to get there, but we got there. So we were sending a very clear message that if you came as a family, it was no longer that your passport to the United States was to be released and never heard from again.
“Here’s why we didn’t have to enroll more illegal aliens in the program. Because it worked. So you saw in February 2020, a reduction in families of 75%, 80%,” he told DCNF. “The message was clear, the underlying policy was clear. You come to the border with your family, you will no longer be released. So it was effective. »
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