The Supreme Court will hear a Biden administration proposal to overturn a controversial Trump-era immigration policy.
The judges agreed on Feb. 18 to hear an administration offer to appeal decisions that resulted in the reinstatement of the so-called “stay in Mexico” policy. The policy, also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), was introduced in 2019 and reversed by current President Joe Biden on his first day in office.
“The MPP allows U.S. authorities to send migrants, many of them asylum seekers, who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border without proper papers to Mexico to await the completion of their proceedings in the U.S. Court of immigration,” wrote the Migration Policy Institute, a migration body. think tank, in its explanation of politics.
Despite the policy officially ending in June 2021, Remain in Mexico was ordered to reinstate the policy by a Texas federal judge in August 2021. This came after Texas and Missouri filed suit against the Biden administration for its removal, saying it was wrongfully terminated. A week after the order, the United States and Mexico agreed to relaunch the program. Since the policy restarted, 572 people have been deported to Mexico from the United States.
“The Supreme Court of the United States has just made an oral argument in the case of Texas’ Remain-in-Mexico program,” wrote Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Twitter. “Because of my lawsuit, Biden was ordered to reinstate this very effective program. We won in the high court. We won again in the appeals court. And we will win again in SCOTUS!”
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Proponents of the policy, such as Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, say it has led to fewer migrants crossing the border from Mexico into the United States.
“Before Migrant Protection Protocols were enacted by the Trump administration, illegal aliens hoping to enter the United States attempted to ‘game’ the immigration system by traveling from a third country such as Guatemala or Nicaragua via Mexico and seeking asylum in the United States,” he wrote in an August 2021 statement. “These protocols have significantly reduced the burden of detention and execution for the Department of Homeland Security and others.”
However, critics say the policy did the exact opposite and left immigrants vulnerable to potential dangers in Mexico. Some, like American Immigration Council policy adviser Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, have claimed that it actually made the immigration and naturalization process worse.
“Internal reports under the Trump administration have said that the MPP did indeed breach immigration courts,” Reichlin-Melnick told NPR at the time. “They put 70,000 people through the program and could only name about 20 judges.”
Update 2/18/2022 5:36 PM ET: This story has been updated to include more background information.
