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The
move comes after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of
Democratic President Joe Biden in his administration's bid to
end the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program, which pushed
non-Mexican migrants back to Mexico to await resolution of their
U.S. cases, which sometimes took months or years.
The Biden administration will no longer enroll migrants in MPP
and those currently waiting in Mexico will be removed from the
program and allowed to enter the United States as they return
for their next scheduled court dates, DHS said in a statement.
The program, informally known as "remain in Mexico," was
launched in 2019 under former President Donald Trump, a
Republican who sought to restrict both legal and illegal
immigration. Under Trump, the initiative forced more than 65,000
non-Mexican asylum seekers back across the border where they
waited in squalid and often dangerous conditions.
Biden ended MPP shortly after taking office in January 2021 as
part of his efforts to reverse the hardline policies of his
Republican predecessor. But the termination was blocked by a
federal judge in August 2021, forcing Biden to restart the
program and eventually sending the legal fight to the Supreme
Court.
As of July 6, nearly 5,800 migrants had been sent to Mexico
under a revamped version of the program, according to DHS
statistics.
The Biden administration was separately stopped in court from
ending another Trump-era order known as Title 42 that allows
border authorities to expel migrants without giving them a
chance to claim asylum in order to limit the spread of COVID-19.
(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Mica
Rosenberg)
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