Originally signed into law by former President Donald Trump, Texas’ fight to keep the program in place reached the nation’s highest court this week.
WASHINGTON, DC, USA — On Tuesday, the state of Texas and the Biden administration took their fight over a controversial immigration policy to the nation’s highest court.
Texas leaders have gone to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to preserve the so-called “stay in Mexico” program, also known as the Migrant Protection Protocol. First adopted by former President Donald Trump in 2019, it requires asylum seekers to wait for their appearance before the United States outside the country.
Texas and Missouri sued to keep the program. In Mexico, however, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) provided humanitarian aid to those in need and spoke out against this policy.
“This does not give asylum seekers an appropriate means to apply for refugee status in the United States,” said IOM Chief of Mission Dana Graber Ladek. “On top of that, he’s sending individuals under the MPP back to Mexico, which in itself can put them in a pretty dangerous situation.”
The Biden administration ended the MPP shortly after the 2020 election, but a lower court ruling forced its restart on a much smaller scale. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s argument for keeping the policy in place is simple: He says Border Patrol is outdated.
“They have to deal with hundreds of thousands of people crossing the border every month,” he said. “That means these border agents aren’t protecting the borders the way they would against the importation of drugs. We know the Trump administration has implemented the program successfully.”
But Ladek says sending asylum seekers back to “sometimes very dangerous environments” doesn’t solve the problem.
“I wouldn’t say it’s successful by any means,” she said. “What the United States needs is the ability of these individuals to process their immigration status fairly and transparently.”
In a statement to KENS 5, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said the program had “endemic flaws, imposed unjustifiable human costs, diverted resources and personnel from other priority efforts, and did not succeeded in tackling the root causes of irregular migration”.
“While DHS is implementing the MPP in good faith, as required by a court order, the Department hopes the Supreme Court will overrule lower court rulings and allow Secretary Mayorkas to exercise his discretion to enforce implement its political decision to end the MPP,” the statement said. keep reading.
The Supreme Court is expected to hand down its decision this summer.
