United
States President Joe Biden’s administration is taking steps to restart by
mid-November a program begun under his predecessor Donald Trump that forced asylum
seekers to wait in Mexico for U.S. court hearings after a federal court deemed
the termination of the program unjustified, U.S. officials said Thursday.
The
administration, however, is planning to make another attempt to rescind the
Migrant Protection Protocols, commonly called the “Remain in Mexico” policy,
even as it takes steps to comply with the August ruling by Texas-based U.S.
District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, the officials said.
The
possible reinstatement of MPP – even on a short term basis – would add to a
confusing mix of U.S. policies in place at the Mexican border, where crossings
into the United States have reached 20-year-highs in recent months. The
administration said it can only move forward if Mexico agrees. Officials from
both countries said they are discussing the matter.
Mexico’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday that it has expressed a “number of concerns” over MPP to U.S. officials, particularly around due process, legal certainty, access to legal aid and the safety of migrants.
Trump,
a Republican known for hardline immigration policies, created the MPP policy in
2019, arguing that many asylum claims were fraudulent and applicants allowed
into the United States might end up staying illegally if they skipped court
hearings. Biden, a Democrat, ended the policy soon after taking office in
January as part of his pledge to take a more humane approach to border issues.
Immigration
advocates have said the program exposed migrants to violence and kidnappings in
dangerous border cities where people camped out for months or years in shelters
or on the street waiting for U.S. asylum hearings.
Biden
in March said that “I make no apology” for ending MPP, a policy he described as
sending people to the “edge of the Rio Grande in a muddy circumstance with not
enough to eat.”
After
the Republican-led states of Texas and Missouri sued Biden over his decision to
end the program, Kacsmaryk ruled in August that it must be reinstated. The U.S.
Supreme Court, whose 6-3 conservative majority includes three justices
appointed by Trump, subsequently let Kacsmaryk’s ruling stand, rejecting a bid
by Biden’s administration to block it.
The
administration has said it will comply with Kacsmaryk’s ruling “in good faith”
while continuing its appeal in the case. The administration also plans to issue
a fresh memo to terminate the program in the hopes it will resolve any legal
concerns surrounding the previous one, officials said.
“Re-implementation
is not something that the administration has wanted to do,” a U.S. Department
of Homeland Security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said in a
call with reporters. “But in the interim we are under this obligation of the
court.”
The
official said the administration has taken steps including preparing courts,
some housed in tents, near the border where asylum hearings could be held.
For
MPP to restart, Mexico has said that it first wants to make sure migrants have
access to legal counsel and that particularly vulnerable people are not
returned, a second DHS official said.
A
senior Mexican official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said that
while conversations have been underway through a working group since the August
Supreme Court ruling, “there is no decision at this point.”
Biden
has left in place another policy that Trump implemented in March 2020, early in
the COVID-19 pandemic, that allows for most migrants caught crossing the border
to be rapidly expelled for public health reasons, with no type of asylum
screening. One DHS official said that policy will continue.
Mexico
has also expressed its concern over this policy, the foreign ministry said on
Thursday, warning that it incentivises repeat crossings and puts migrants at
risk.
In
a win for Mexico on a separate front, the United States said this week it will
lift restrictions at its legal ports of entry for fully vaccinated foreign
nationals in early November, ending curbs on non-essential travellers during
the pandemic.
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