Biden to strengthen border with Mexico against illegal immigration

The future of Title 42 hinges on Justice, as well as the controversial immigration program “Remain in Mexico”, set up by Trump in 2019 to target applicants for asylum in the US

The U.S. Supreme Court heard pleadings Tuesday in a case to decide whether the Biden Administration You have the right to terminate this program whose official name is “Migrant Protection Protocols” (MPP).

It’s not clear which way the balance will go in the Supreme Court, with six conservative and three progressive judges, although their questions reflected a degree of skepticism about efforts by the states of Texas and Missouri, ruled by Republicans, to prevent the Federal Executive terminate this program.

Representing the government, the Attorney General, Elizabeth Prelogar, began her speech by recalling that the Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), Alejandro Mayorkas, had exercised his legal authority to end the MPPs, but a court has ordered him to. prevented.

In that sense, Prelogar emphasized that the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which the MPPs rely on, says in one of its clauses that DHS “may” use its power to send migrants back to Mexico, not you.

a lot of the Exhibition of Prelogar and the Supreme Court justices’ questions focused on that detail in a way that the government is using to defend its right to withdraw the program, with little mention of the tragic humanitarian situation facing migrants on the southern border. experience of the United States.

Trump instituted MPPs in early 2019, requiring foreigners arriving at the border to apply for asylum to wait for their procedures on Mexican territory to proceed.

Biden suspended that policy on his first day in the White House, in January 2021, and attempted to repeal it completely last year, but faced opposition from the Texas and Missouri attorneys general, who ordered a federal judge from the first state ordered the recovery of the MPP.

Last August, a federal appeals court and the Supreme Court rejected the government’s attempts to block the Texas judge’s ruling.

In October, Mayorkas published a memorandum again withdrawing “Stay in Mexico”, but in December the executive had to reactivate the program after another court decision.

Texas Attorney General Judd Stone also spoke before the Supreme Court on Tuesday, which argued that when the law says migrants “will be detained,” it is a mandate, so if DHS cannot arrest them due to lack of space in their detention centers make it a “duty” to send them to Mexico.

Precisely Biden and his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, will hold a virtual meeting next Friday in which they will discuss priorities in the region, including cooperation on immigration, the White House reported Tuesday.