Supreme Court lets Biden end Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” Policy

The policy of returning certain non-Mexican citizens to Mexico after they enter the United States, rather than detaining or releasing them, has been a priority of President Biden’s since the beginning of his administration.

To President Joe Biden’s delight, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the former vice president had the authority to knock down an effort by the Trump administration to limit immigration across the southern border.

The court ruled 5-4 that the Biden administration had acted appropriately in seeking to discontinue the “Remain in Mexico” program, which is formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols. Asylees from Central America were forced to wait in Mexico while their claims were processed at the southern border.

“Plainly conferring a discretionary authority to return aliens to Mexico during the pendency of their immigration proceedings,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in a majority opinion.

“The use of the word ‘may’ in the law question makes clear that contiguous-territory return is a tool that the (DHS) Secretary ‘has the authority, but not the duty,’ to use,” Roberts wrote.

Prominent immigrant-rights advocates have taken issue with the program, which was first implemented in 2019 under then-President Trump, arguing that it is cruel and exposes asylum seekers to dangerous and squalid conditions in Mexico.

Last December, the policy was restarted. According to the International Organization for Migration, more than 5,000 migrants have been returned to Mexico under the program since then. Participation in the program includes Nicaragua, Cuba, Colombia, and Venezuela.

Due to previous court losses, the administration has been unable to reverse Trump’s immigration policies, and this Supreme Court decision is a significant victory for the Biden agenda. Biden’s attempts to shift from his predecessor’s aggressive approach to a more moderate one have been challenged by several red states, and those cases are currently being litigated in lower courts.

Biden Justice Department officials say they have never before seen immigration law interpreted to mandate that the federal government return illegal immigrants back to Mexico with pending immigration proceedings that it couldn’t detain because of space constraints.

During his time in office, Biden has had to deal with an increasing number of border crossings due to the Western Hemisphere’s ongoing mass migration. More than a million migrants have been stopped at the US-Mexico border since October, but many have been turned away due to a different pandemic-emergency rule that was put in place. “Remain in Mexico” is not an effective use of resources and comes at a high human cost, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Pro-immigration groups reacted with joy to Thursday’s court decision. After working on hundreds of MPP cases, an immigration attorney called the decision a “victory” for “tens of thousands of people who had been stranded because of Remain in Mexico and subject to unimaginable cruelty.”