WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court announced Friday that it will hear an appeal from the Biden administration regarding its efforts to overturn a Trump-era policy require asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while U.S. authorities process their demands.
The case, which judges will hear in the second week of April, brings the case back to the High Court months after a majority said the administration failed to properly shut down the controversial program and asked officials to restore it.
In response, the administration revived the policy, renegotiating with Mexico to keep asylum seekers there, but it launched another effort to shut down the program, hoping to withstand legal scrutiny. The United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit rejected the administration’s latest effort to end the policy in December.
The Department of Homeland Security has “thus been compelled to reinstate and continue to implement indefinitely a contentious policy that the Secretary has twice determined is not in the interests of the United States,” the statement said. administration at the High Court.
The Trump administration implemented the Migrant Protection Protocols in January 2019 as part of its effort to limit immigration – legal and illegal – to the US-Mexico border and end what critics call the policies. of “capture and release”. By the end of 2020, the Trump administration had enrolled 68,000 people in the program, according to court records.
The program has allowed US authorities to send migrants, including those from Central America, to Mexico while they wait for an immigration judge to review their case. A federal district court in Texas found the policy had a chilling effect, leading to a significant reduction in encounters with law enforcement along the country’s southern border.
Texas and Missouri have sued, claiming the Biden administration failed to properly end the program. The states claimed that federal law requires that “very few” migrants arriving at the border be allowed to remain in the United States while their case is being processed.
“In the opinion of the government, the vast majority of foreigners who arrive will be released in this way,” the states told the court in legal documents. “The government is thus embarking on a ‘radical’ rewrite of the law.”
