Thread: Supreme Court Reinstates 'Remain in Mexico' Policy for Asylum Applicants Jess Bravin

Supreme Court Reinstates 'Remain in Mexico' Policy for Asylum Applicants

Jess Bravin 2 hrs ago


© AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File In this Jan. 29, 2019, file photo, a migrant family lines up before being transported by Mexican authorities to the San Ysidro port of entry to begin the process of applying for asylum in the United States in Tijuana, Mexico.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday, March 11, 2020, allowed the Trump administration to continue enforcing a policy that makes asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for U.S. court hearings, but “Remain in Mexico” is one of several U.S. responses to an unprecedented surge of asylum-seeking families.WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court on Tuesday reinstated a Trump-era policy that requires asylum applicants to wait in Mexico while their claims are evaluated by U.S. authorities. The three liberal justices dissented.

President Biden canceled the Trump administration Migrant Protection Protocols, commonly called the Remain in Mexico policy, responding to criticism that it forced vulnerable migrants to wait out their cases in violent border cities. Lower courts found the administration failed to follow proper procedures in ending the policy and that the alternative of paroling into the U.S. asylum applicants en masse may violate federal law.
The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court to let it cancel Remain in Mexico while it appealed, but in a brief order Tuesday evening, the justices said the government was unlikely to prevail.
The administration “failed to show a likelihood of success on the claim that the memorandum rescinding the Migrant Protection Protocols was not arbitrary and capricious,” the unsigned order said. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan indicated they would have granted the government’s application.
“The Department of Homeland Security respectfully disagrees with the district court’s decision and regrets that the Supreme Court declined to issue a stay,” the department said in a statement, adding that the administration was in discussions with Mexico over an agreement to re-implement the program.
A representative for the Mexican foreign ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
As a practical matter, Remain in Mexico hasn’t been in use since 2019. Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic last year, U.S. officials under both the Trump and Biden administrations have been turning back migrants under public-health orders issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.



© Eric Gay/Associated Press

Nevertheless, at the request of two Republican-controlled states, Texas and Missouri, lower federal courts ordered the Department of Homeland Security to reinstate the Migrant Protection Protocols. In August, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, in Amarillo, Texas, issued a nationwide order requiring the government to reinstate Remain in Mexico.

Video: The Trump administration’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy for asylum seekers, explained (The Washington Post)

Video at the Page link

Judge Kacsmaryk, a 2019 Trump appointee, found termination of the program to be arbitrary and capricious, and said the Department of Homeland Security hadn’t properly considered the benefits of denying entry to noncitizens claiming to be persecuted in their homelands.
Texas and Missouri argued that Remain in Mexico reduced burdens for their taxpayers, such as the cost of processing driver’s license applications for noncitizens who are allowed to move in while their asylum cases are pending. It can take months or years to resolve such claims before U.S. immigration courts.
After the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in New Orleans, declined to block Judge Kacsmaryk’s order, the administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
The district court decision “imposes a severe and unwarranted burden on Executive authority over immigration policy and foreign affairs by ordering the government to precipitously re-implement a discretionary program that the Secretary [of Homeland Security] has determined was critically flawed,” the Justice Department filing said.
The administration said the order effectively required the Remain in Mexico policy to operate indefinitely, because it would terminate only when the government had capacity to detain all asylum applicants in the U.S. That is a practical impossibility, the government said, because Congress never has provided adequate funding for such a detention program.
Late Friday, Justice Samuel Alito, who oversees the Fifth Circuit that includes Texas, issued a temporary stay granting the government’s request through midnight Wednesday so that the full court could consider the matter.
In their response brief, Texas and Missouri argued that Remain in Mexico was a necessary response to a flood of migrants at the border, and noted that more than 80% of asylum claims ultimately were rejected.
“By eliminating the ‘free ticket into the United States,’ MPP served to discourage such futile and dangerous journeys [and] thus [is] an ‘indispensable tool in addressing the ongoing crisis at the southern border,’” the states said, citing previous court papers.
In a separate case, immigrant advocates had challenged Remain in Mexico, prevailing before a federal appeals court in San Francisco, which ordered a halt to the policy. Last year, at the Trump administration’s request, the Supreme Court reinstated the policy while the litigation proceeded, and scheduled arguments for March 2021. The justices canceled that hearing after the new administration dropped the policy and joined plaintiffs in seeking to end the case.
Federal courts stymied several Trump administration initiatives on similar grounds to Tuesday’s order, namely that agencies had acted in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, which is intended to promote reasoned, transparent decision-making by the executive branch.
In June 2020, for instance, the Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote blocked Mr. Trump’s effort to cancel Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era program providing legal protections and work permits to unauthorized immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by the court’s then-four member liberal wing, wrote that the Trump administration terminated the program without considering such matters as “what if anything to do about the hardship to DACA recipients.”
Tuesday’s order cited that opinion as authority for denying permission to cancel Remain in Mexico.

Write to Jess Bravin at jess.bravin+1@wsj.com

Supreme Court Reinstates 'Remain in Mexico' Policy for Asylum Applicants (msn.com)

Make it retroactive and get them ALL out of here now!

Use our National Guard to round them up and bus them back to Mexico.

Mexico let them in and Mexico can damn well keep them all or expel them back over their Southern Border and on down the line!

We are not their travel agent to fly them home!

Supreme Court orders 'Remain in Mexico' policy reinstated

By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press 5 hrs ago
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© Provided by Associated Press FILE - Migrants waiting to cross into the United States wait for news at the border crossing Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021, in Tijuana, Mexico.

A federal appellate court refused late Thursday, Aug. 19 to delay implementation of a judge’s order reinstating a Trump administration policy forcing thousands to wait in Mexico while seeking asylum in the U.S. President Joe Biden had suspended former President Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy on his first day in office and the Department of Homeland Security said it was permanently terminating the program in June, according to the court record. (AP Photo/Elliot Spagat)WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says the Biden administration likely violated federal law in trying to end a Trump-era program that forces people to wait in Mexico while seeking asylum in the U.S.

With three liberal justices in dissent, the high court on Tuesday refused to block a lower court ruling ordering the administration to reinstate the program informally known as Remain in Mexico.
It's not clear how many people will be affected and how quickly. Under the lower court ruling, the administration must make a “good faith effort” to restart the program.
There also is nothing preventing the administration from trying again to end the program, formally called Migrant Protection Protocols.
A federal judge in Texas had previously ordered that the program be reinstated last week. Both he and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused the administration's request to put the ruling on hold.
Justice Samuel Alito ordered a brief delay to allow the full court time to consider the administration's appeal to keep the ruling on hold while the case continues to make its way through the courts.
The 5th Circuit ordered expedited consideration of the administration's appeal.
The court offered little explanation for its action, although it cited its opinion from last year rejecting the Trump administration's effort to end another immigration program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. In that case, the court held that the decision to end DACA was “arbitrary and capricious,” in violation of federal law.

Video: Supreme Court says 'remain in Mexico' program can stay (The Washington Post)

The administration has “failed to show a likelihood of success on the claim that the memorandum rescinding the Migrant Protection Protocols was not arbitrary and capricious," the court wrote Tuesday in an unsigned order.
The three dissenting justices, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, did not write an opinion expressing their views of the case.
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said it regrets that the high court declined to issue a stay. The department said it would continue to challenge the district court’s order.
The American Civil Liberties Union called on the administration to present a fuller rationale for ending Remain in Mexico that could withstand court scrutiny.
“The government must take all steps available to fully end this illegal program, including by re-terminating it with a fuller explanation. What it must not do is use this decision as cover for abandoning its commitment to restore a fair asylum system,” said Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU's immigrant rights project.
During Donald Trump's presidency, the policy required tens of thousands of migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. to turn back to Mexico. It was meant to discourage asylum seekers but critics said it denied people the legal right to seek protection in the U.S. and forced them to wait in dangerous Mexican border cities.
The judge, U.S. District Judge Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk in Amarillo, Texas, ordered that the program be reinstated in response to a lawsuit filed by the states of Texas and Missouri, whose governors have been seeking to reinstate some of the hard-line anti-immigration policies of the Trump administration.
The Biden administration argued in briefs that the president has “clear authority to determine immigration policy” and that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas had discretion in deciding whether to return asylum seekers to Mexico.
The policy has been dormant for more than a year and the administration argued that abruptly reinstating it “would prejudice the United States’ relations with vital regional partners, severely disrupt its operations at the southern border, and threaten to create a diplomatic and humanitarian crisis.”
The Trump administration largely stopped using the “Remain in Mexico” policy at the start of the pandemic, at which point it began turning back virtually everyone crossing the Southwest border under a different protocol — a public health order that remains in effect.
President Joe Biden suspended the program on his first day of office and the Homeland Security Department ended it in June.
Kacsmaryk was nominated to the federal bench by Trump. The 5th Circuit panel that ruled Thursday night included two Trump appointees, Andrew Oldham and Cory Wilson, along with Jennifer Walker Elrod, nominated to the appeals court by President George W. Bush.
At the high court, at least five of the six conservative justices, including three Trump appointees, voted for the restart of the program. Under the court's opaque treatment of emergency appeals, the justices don't always say publicly how they voted.

Supreme Court orders 'Remain in Mexico' policy reinstated (msn.com)

BREAKING: Supreme Court delivers major blow to Biden over Trump border policy!

AUG. 24, 2021 8:27 PM BY THE RIGHT SCOOP • 105 COMMENTS

Sharing is caring!

The Supreme Court has just delivered a major blow to Biden tonight over Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ border policy. The Supreme Court has ordered, in effect, that the policy must be reinstated:



Bill Melugin
@BillFOXLA

BREAKING: In a loss for the Biden administration, The Supreme Court has ruled that the administration must reinstate Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” border policy, which requires many immigrants who seek asylum in the U.S. to stay in Mexico while they await a hearing. @FoxNews

7:49 PM · Aug 24, 2021



Attorney General Eric Schmitt
@AGEricSchmitt

BREAKING: Missouri and @TXAG have PREVAILED over the Biden Admin for a 3rd time - tonight, SCOTUS ruled 6-3 in our favor in our "Remain in Mexico" policy lawsuit, which requires the Biden Admin to reinstate the successful Trump-era policy. Another big win for border security!


7:56 PM · Aug 24, 2021

Here’s a bit more on it from Newsmax:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to block a court ruling ordering the Biden administration to reinstate a Trump-era policy that forces people to wait in Mexico while seeking asylum in the U.S.
With the three liberal justices in dissent, the court said the administration likely violated federal law in its efforts to rescind the program informally known as Remain in Mexico.
A federal judge in Texas had previously ordered that the program be reinstated last week. Both he and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused the administration’s request to put the ruling on hold.
Justice Samuel Alito ordered a brief delay to allow the full court time to consider the administration’s appeal.

Wow. All six justices ruled together on this, which is saying something given that Justice Roberts is such a flip-flopper. Well done Missouri and Texas. I’m sure Biden is pitching a tantrum over this ruling given that he dumped in on his first day in office.


BREAKING: Supreme Court delivers major blow to Biden over Trump border policy! – The Right Scoop

Supreme Court needs to END Birthright Citizenship now!

Their offspring are not U.S. citizens.

Make that retroactive too!