Reluctantly, the Biden administration is complying with a Supreme Court order to reestablish the Migrant Protection Protocols — the “Remain in Mexico” policy — after a federal judge ordered the administration to comply.
The administration had been telling the court that they wanted to abolish the program and come up with alternatives that would accomplish the same goals as the MPP. But on Friday, a federal judge ordered the Biden administration to “enforce and implement” the MPP.
The MPP had been extraordinarily effective in requiring potential asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their cases to be decided by an immigration court. The process was good at weeding out bogus or insufficient asylum claims without letting people into the country. It also helped end the process of “catch and release” — a policy Biden has been trying to reimplement.
Critics said the policy was “inhumane” because the asylum seekers were forced to wait in makeshift tents in dangerous cities while their cases were adjudicated.
Missouri, who along with Texas, sued DHS over the ending of MPP, accused the administration of having “slow-walked” compliance with the order.
“In April, we sued the Biden Administration over their cancellation of the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy and won at the district court, 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, and at the United States Supreme Court, requiring the Biden Administration to reimplement the policy,” Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said in a statement. “Despite multiple courts ordering the Biden Administration to reimplement the policy, they have repeatedly slow-walked that reimplementation.”
“The ‘Remain in Mexico’ Policy should be implemented today, especially as the crisis at the border continues to worsen every single day. We have taken concrete action to secure the border, it’s time for the Biden Administration to do the same,” he said.
Mexico may want to throw a monkey wrench into any restart of MPP.
MPP cannot resume without Mexico’s consent, as the court acknowledged in its ruling, and administration officials said they are taking steps to address the concerns of the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador by setting up better access to legal counsel for asylum seekers, exemptions for vulnerable migrants and other safeguards.
“Mexico is a sovereign nation that must make an independent decision to accept the return of individuals without status in Mexico as part of any reimplementation of MPP,” the DHS statement said. “Discussions with the Government of Mexico concerning when and how MPP will be reimplemented are ongoing.”
Needless to say, radical open-border activists are none too pleased with their president. They anticipated a golden age of immigration in America where illegal immigrants were to be welcomed with flowers, and an orderly procession of new arrivals would wait patiently at the border to be admitted.
Now, Biden is not only going to deny some asylum claims, but he also isn’t going to lift the pandemic measure called Title 42, which keeps many illegal immigrants out of the country.
This is strange, considering what Biden said just a few short months ago.
“Rolling back the policies of ‘Remain in Mexico,’ sitting on the edge of the Rio Grande in a muddy circumstance with not enough to eat and — I make no apologies for that,” the president told reporters in March. “I make no apologies for ending programs that did not exist before Trump became President, that have an incredibly negative impact on the law, international law, as well as on human dignity.”
The trouble with moral posturing and virtue signaling is that sometimes you have to eat those words and do what’s necessary to solve a problem.
Trump was faced with a crisis at the border and used his policies to alleviate the crisis. Biden is now finding that he must use the same policies or lose control of the border. He probably still doesn’t agree with Trump, but he is being forced to face reality and do what’s necessary both politically and practically.
And the radicals? They can pound sand.
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