Homeland Security said Thursday it is ready to restart the “Remain in Mexico” policy that turns illegal immigrants back at the border to wait for their hearings in U.S. immigration courts, but said it still needs Mexico to sign off.
The Department of Homeland Security is under a court order to revive the Trump-era program, officially known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), but has not yet done so.
In an unsigned statement, the department said it is making “humanitarian” improvements to the program over what was done in the Trump years. The department said those concerns were raised by Mexico and “shared” by the new administration.
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“To comply with the court order, however, DHS will be ready to reimplement MPP once the Government of Mexico makes a final and independent decision to accept the return of individuals enrolled in the program, subject to certain humanitarian improvements,” the department said.
The Washington Times reached out to the Mexican Embassy for comment.
Under MPP, illegal immigrants from beyond Mexico who jumped the border and attempted to make a claim in the U.S. were given notices of court dates and returned to Mexico to wait.
The goal was to discourage bogus asylum applications that had flooded the system when it became clear to migrants in Central America that they could arrive, make a claim and be released into the U.S., where they could wait for years — sometimes legally holding jobs — for their cases to be heard.
After MPP was implemented in 2019, illegal border crossings plummeted.
But immigrant-rights advocates said returning people to Mexico blocked some deserving asylum applicants. It also left them vulnerable to abuse and in some cases denied them the chance to communicate with a lawyer or gain other assistance they desired.
Activists cataloged thousands of cases of migrants enrolled in MPP who said they were robbed, beaten, raped or otherwise faced struggles after being sent back.
Among the changes that Homeland Security has promised to the program are finishing court cases within six months and ensuring better access to legal assistance from Mexico.
New MPP enrollees will also be offered COVID-19 vaccines.
And Homeland Security said it will push Mexico to improve the safety of the shelters where MPP enrollees are encouraged to wait.
The Biden administration halted the MPP in its early days, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas tried to revoke the program altogether in early June.
But a federal judge ruled that Mr. Mayorkas cut too many corners in his decision-making and ordered him to make a “good-faith” effort to revive the program.
Mr. Mayorkas says he is still intent on canceling it and has issued a more thorough memo justifying that decision. But the court’s injunction remains, so he is being forced to take steps to revive it.
About 68,000 people were put through the MPP from its 2019 start to its suspension by the Biden administration in January.
Though the number was small relative to the overall border traffic, Trump officials said it sent a message to would-be migrants, and the flow of people tumbled.
Mexico agreed to expand the MPP in 2019, under threat of crippling sanctions by then-President Trump. And Mexico also deployed tens of thousands of national guard troops along the routes used by Central American migrants to choke off the flow further south.
Those moves, along with other steps to curtail asylum claims, helped solve the 2019 border surge.
The Biden administration has erased the Trump policies, though a pandemic border shutdown, known as Title 42, remains in place, allowing immediate expulsion of some illegal immigrants — when Mexico will take them back.
Under Title 42, Mexico is generally allowing Spanish-speaking single adults and families who don’t have children under age 7 to be returned.