US President Joe Biden has asked the US Supreme Court to rule on the implementation of the ‘Remain in Mexico’ – migrant program, which forces thousands of asylum seekers to wait in the Mexican country until the date of their hearings in the United States.
The Biden Administration has asked Supreme Court justices to decide whether the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, should continue the immigration policy established by former President Donald Trump in 2019.
Biden suspended this roadmap on his first day in office, pending review. The states of Texas and Missouri sued the Administration for suspending the program, arguing that ending it represented a burden for the states because migrants use state services to get both driver’s licenses and hospital care, according to NBC News.
After that, US judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, appointed by former President Donald Trump, ruled that the policy should be reestablished, since its suspension “led the United States to violate the law on immigration detention,” according to CBS.
The Biden administration quickly appealed the ruling and, in late October, Mayorkas issued a new, more comprehensive memo, arguing about the “unjustifiable human costs” of the measure.
Finally, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals – a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over district courts – earlier this month rejected the Biden Administration’s appeal and upheld Kacsmaryk’s ruling. Also, Mayorkas reissued a memorandum to try to end the dispute, but a federal appeals court rejected the new attempt.
Formally called ‘Migrant Protection Protocols’ (MPP, for its acronym in English), the program prohibits asylum seekers from Central America from entering the United States while the courts deliberate on their situation, according to the newspaper’ The Wall Street Journal ‘.
In recent weeks, the United States and Mexico have been negotiating terms to restart the program, described by the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) as an “aberration” because “the government agencies responsible for implementing the plan” cannot carry it out. carried out “in a way that respects Human Rights.”
On December 23, the Mexican Foreign Minister, Marcelo Ebrard, asked the North American country not to return asylum seekers in vulnerable conditions, who are minors, pregnant women and those who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 .
“What did Mexico ask for? That there be support from international organizations to assist these people and that people are vaccinated, other than people in a vulnerable situation, for example pregnant women, minors, etc., that is what Mexico asked for”, Ebrand said.
The Mexican government argues that, since March 2020, the return of people who claimed to cross for health reasons has increased. Specifically, the Mexican authorities point out that the flow of people has remained between 1,500 and 2,000 people a day, a third of them Mexican, according to the newspaper ‘Milenio’.
