Supreme Court temporarily suspends judge’s order that would have forced the government to reinstate a Trump administration policy forcing thousands of people to wait in Mexico while seeking asylum in the United States
Judge Samuel Alito issued the temporary suspension late Friday evening. It will remain in force until Tuesday evening so that the High Court can review the filings in the case.
A Texas federal judge previously ordered the program, informally known as “Stay in Mexico,” reinstated on Saturday. The Biden administration appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Appeal in New Orleans and asked for a delay to reimplement the program, pending the appeal, but it was denied Thursday.
Formally known as the Migration Protection Protocols, the policy required tens of thousands of migrants seeking asylum in the United States to return to Mexico. It was intended to discourage asylum seekers, but critics said it denied people the legal right to seek protection in the United States and forced them to wait in dangerous Mexican border towns.
Texas Judge U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk ordered the program reinstated in response to a lawsuit brought by the states of Texas and Missouri, whose governors have sought to reinstate some of the policies against -Trump’s radical immigration. administration.
The Biden administration argued in briefs that the president had ‘clear authority to determine immigration policy’ and that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas had discretion to decide whether to remove applicants. asylum in Mexico.
In its brief to the Supreme Court on Friday, the administration argued that the policy had been dormant for more than a year and that abruptly reinstating it “would harm the United States’ relationship with vital regional partners, seriously disrupt its operations on the southern border, and threaten to create a diplomatic and humanitarian crisis.
The Trump administration largely stopped using the “Remain in Mexico” policy at the start of the pandemic, when it began turning back virtually everyone crossing the southwest border under a different protocol — an order. of public health which remains in force. The Biden administration has said pre-pandemic politics had been “largely dormant” for months even before the COVID-19 outbreak.
President Joe Biden suspended the program on his first day in office, and the Department of Homeland Security terminated it in June.
Texas and Missouri have argued that the Biden administration failed to follow proper administrative procedures to end the policy, a legal argument that has repeatedly succeeded in some of the legal challenges to the immigration policies. of the Trump administration.
Kacsmaryk was appointed to the federal bench by Trump. The 5th Circuit panel that ruled Thursday night included two Trump nominees, Andrew Oldham and Cory Wilson, as well as Jennifer Walker Elrod, an appeals court appointee by President George W. Bush.
