Good News! Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” Agreement Reinstated

On his first day in office, President Joe Biden began dismantling former President Donald Trump‟s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). Result: Biden (a) delayed deportation for certain noncitizens and (b) suspended the “Remain in Mexico” (RIM) policy that required aliens seeking asylum to wait in Mexico until they had a U.S. court hearing.

RIM affected 60,000 or more aliens from the time it was implemented in January 2019 and January 20, 2021, when the Biden Administration took office and, promptly, suspended it.

Biden‟s move from suspension to rescission took a little over five months. On June 1, 2021, the Biden administration formally rescinded the highly successful Remain in Mexico program.

But the Court intervened! In August 2021, the MPP was reinstated by a Texas federal judge and, subsequently, upheld by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that refused a request by the Biden Administration to put the ruling on hold.

On August 24th the U.S. Supreme Court denied the Administration’s request for a stay. A George W. Bush appointee to the Supreme Court, Justice Samuel Alito, issued an “Order in Pending Case: Biden, President of U.S., et al, v. Texas, et al,” a half-page, 100-word unsigned ruling that supports both lower court decisions. Justice Alito explained the opinion with this statement: “The applicants have failed to show a likelihood of success on the claim that the memorandum rescinding the Migrant Protection Protocols was not arbitrary and capricious.”

No other opinion was issued, but the last sentence in the Order listed Supreme Court Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan as having disagreed with the majority opinion. Also on August 24th, the DHS declared that the decision would be vigorously challenged. So, it‟s not over, yet.

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