Federal judge orders Biden administration to reinstate 'Remain in Mexico' policy

Federal judge orders Biden administration to reinstate 'Remain in Mexico' policy
Mabinty Quarshie, USA TODAY
Sun, August 15, 2021, 8:56 AM

A federal judge has revived a Trump-era immigration policy that ordered asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico as they waited for their U.S. court hearings.

President Joe Biden halted the controversial Migrant Protection Protocols border policy, known as "Remain in Mexico," during his first days in office, making good on a campaign promise. The program required thousands of non-Mexican migrants to wait in Mexico – an unprecedented handling of immigration protocol.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in June formally ended the program, saying keeping it intact "would be a poor use of the department’s resources.”

However, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, directed the Biden administration to reinstate the program, saying the administration “failed to consider several critical factors” when ending the program. Kacsmaryk delayed his order for seven days to give the administration a chance to appeal.

Kacsmaryk said Mayorkas did not see the "benefits" of the program, which deterred migrants from the border. He also said Mayorkas failed to heed warnings from DHS officials who said the program's repeal would lead to a surge in undocumented immigrants into the U.S and ignored the fiscal cost to states of repealing the policy.

The lawsuit was brought in April by the Republican attorney generals of Texas and Missouri, who argued that ending the program led to a surge in migration at the U.S.-Mexico border.

"Today, in a huge win for the Missouri Attorney General’s Office and in a big step towards securing the border, a federal court issued a nationwide permanent injunction, reversing the Biden Administration’s suspension of the program and ordering the Biden Administration to reimplement the program,” Missouri state Attorney General Schmitt said in a statement.

The Immigration Reform Law Institute, the legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, celebrated Kacsmaryk's ruling, calling it "a major victory."

The policy was "arbitrary and capricious because they did not provide any justification for the change in policy nor consider relevant factors in making that change," the Immigration Reform Law Institute said in an amicus curiae supporting Texas and Missouri.

The institute also pointed to the administration ignoring "the costs that Plaintiff States would incur as a result of the suspension of the MPP program."

In his ruling, Kacsmaryk said Mayorkas' June memo formally ending the program violated federal law.

The policy must remain in effect until the Biden administration has the ability to detain all asylum-seekers, in accordance with U.S. immigration law, and until the MPP is "lawfully rescinded."

The DHS, in partnership with the Department of Justice, rolled out the policy on Jan. 29, 2019, at the San Diego-Tijuana border region.

In past decades, asylum-seekers were allowed to wait for their immigration trial hearings in the U.S. The Trump administration implemented MPP to crack down on asylum and unauthorized immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border. It returned about 70,000 asylum-seekers to Mexico from January 2019 until January 2021, according to The Associated Press.

The policy led many migrants to stay in Mexican border towns often in unsafe and dangerous conditions.

Federal judge reminds Biden to enforce the law
Samuel Kim, Washington Examiner
Wed, August 18, 2021, 7:27 AM

A judge thoroughly schooled the Department of Homeland Security on its duties under federal law.

The Washington Examiner's Jeremy Beaman reported that Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ordered officials to "enforce and implement" the Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocol in “good faith until such time as it has been lawfully rescinded in compliance with the [Administrative Procedures Act] and until such a time as the federal government has sufficient detention capacity to detain all aliens subject to mandatory detention.”

While Kacsmaryk cannot force DHS to reimplement the MPP, he did detail DHS’s mandatory obligation to detain all migrants “who unlawfully enter the United States between ports of entry if they are placed in expedited removal proceedings” under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

In theory, DHS could legally detain every illegal migrant. However, Kacsmaryk noted that when this is practically impossible to do, “the statute implicitly demands, or, at the very least, directs DHS use its authority to return certain aliens to Mexico.”

As Center for Immigration Studies resident fellow Andrew R. Arthur wrote on Tuesday, the Biden administration has three choices when faced with illegal migrants, “It can expel or remove them; it can detain them as the law requires; or it can send them to Mexico to await their removal hearings.”

Even though it does not force a reimplementation of MPP, Judge Kacsmaryk’s order could not have come at a better time. The Washington Examiner’s Anna Giaritelli reported that nearly 213,000 people were encountered by officials at the southern border, the most in 21 years.

And as of early this week, more than 18,500 unaccompanied minors are in federal custody waiting to be released.

Leaving the MPP in place, at least temporarily, would give officials the option to use it. And implementing the policy would alleviate the problems caused by the latest border surge. The Trump administration instituted the "remain in Mexico” policy. And as a result, encounters of accompanied and unaccompanied minors decreased significantly, as well as encounters of family units.

But, as Conn Carroll explained last week, President Joe Biden ended MPP on Day One of his presidency. Instead of rescinding this Trump-era border policy, Biden should humbly admit his failure at the border and reimplement the Migrant Protection Protocol.

According to the liberals this judge must hate brown people.