Washington, April 26 (BNA): The Biden administration is seeking Supreme Court approval to end a controversial Trump-era immigration program that forces some people seeking asylum in the United States to wait in Mexico for their hearings.
Judges will hear arguments Tuesday in the administration’s appeal of lower court rulings that required immigration officials to reinstate a “remain in Mexico” policy that “the administration has twice determined was not in the interests of the United States,” according to court filings, the AP reports.
Texas and Missouri, which have sued to keep the program in place, said it helped reduce the flow of people into the United States at the southern border. “Many are filing unfounded immigration claims, including asylum applications, in the hope that they will be released in the United States,” the states told the Supreme Court in a filing.
About 70,000 people have signed up for the programme, known officially as the Migrant Protection Protocols, after President Donald Trump launched it in 2019 and made it the centerpiece of efforts to deter asylum seekers.
President Joe Biden suspended it on his first day in office, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mallorcas terminated it in June 2021. In October, the Department of Homeland Security provided additional justifications for the policy’s collapse, to no avail in the courts.
The program resumed in December, but there were only 3,000 migrants registered by the end of March, during a period in which authorities stopped migrants nearly 700,000 times at the border.
The crux of the legal struggle is whether the program is discretionary and can be terminated, the administration argues, or is essentially the only way to comply with what states say is an order from Congress not to release the immigrants involved in the case to the United States.
Without proper detention facilities in the United States, Texas and Missouri argue that the administration’s only option is to have immigrants wait in Mexico until their asylum hearings.
The two sides differ separately on whether the administration’s approach to ending the policy complies with a federal law that obliges agencies to follow the rules and explain the reasons for their actions.
Those forced to wait in Mexico widely say they are terrified in the dangerous Mexican border towns and find it extremely difficult to find lawyers to handle their hearings.
Countries led by Democrats and progressive groups are on the administration’s side. Republican-led states and conservative groups sided with Texas and Missouri. These include the America First Legal Foundation, led by Stephen Miller and Mark Meadows, former Trump aides.
As the court considers asylum policy, the administration is expected to end another major Trump-era border policy that was put in place due to the coronavirus pandemic. Authorities are allowed to expel immigrants without the opportunity to seek asylum. The decision to terminate the authority of Title 42, named after the Public Health Act of 1944, is being legally challenged on May 23 by 22 states and faces a growing split within Biden’s Democratic Party.