Joe Biden’s administration will announce on Thursday that it is to restart Donald Trump’s controversial Remain in Mexico asylum policy, according to a report.
Under Biden’s new policy – first reported by Axios on November 24; confirmed by The Washington Post on Wednesday, with the Post saying the news would be officially announced on Thursday – the migrants will once again be sent back to Mexico.
The major difference is that they will be offered a COVID vaccination, but they cannot be forced to accept it. Biden’s policy is likely to anger progressive members of his party – including the so-called ‘Squad’ of four outspoken female representatives, but it could play well with more centrist Democrats who have concerns about uncontrolled immigration into the US.
Officials in the United States are planning to initially use the MPP program primarily for single adult asylum seekers, who account for the majority of illegal border crossings, according to one official who spoke to The Washington Post.
Mexico is willing to accept asylum seekers from Spanish-speaking countries, as with the previous version of the program, the person said. Whether Mexico would accept Haitians – who have surged in numbers in recent months, as the country implodes – was still being debated.
Biden, on taking the White House, immediately ended the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), as the policy is formally known.
When Biden assumed office, migrant numbers surged, with many openly stating that they’d been emboldened to attempt to enter the U.S. illegally because they felt the new president would be more sympathetic than Trump.
The number of migrants encountered by Border Patrol along the Mexican border rose to their highest recorded level in fiscal 2021, according to data analyzed last month by Pew.
Biden is now in the bizarre situation of reintroducing a plan despite his own administration still fighting it in the courts.
In August, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, sitting in Amarillo, Texas, ruled that the Biden administration violated federal law by ending the Remain in Mexico policy.
The Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court, and Justice Alito ruled in Biden’s favor and allowed the administration to temporarily stop Remain in Mexico.
Four days later, on August 24, the Supreme Court declared that Kacsmaryk’s ruling stood, and Biden must reinstate Remain in Mexico.
Alejandro Mayorkas, the Homeland Security Secretary, in October spoke of his concerns about the program.
‘MPP had endemic flaws, imposed unjustifiable human costs, pulled resources and personnel away from other priority efforts, and did not address the root causes of irregular migration,’ he said.
‘MPP not only undercuts the Administration’s ability to implement critically needed and foundational changes to the immigration system, it fails to provide the fair process and humanitarian protections that individuals deserve under the law.’
This is an excerpt from Daily Mail.
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