The US Department of Homeland Security on Monday evening announced it would end a Trump-era policy of sending asylum seekers back to Mexico while their cases are being considered by the courts.
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The announcement came hours after a judge lifted an injunction that prevented US President Joe Biden’s administration from repealing the “Migrant Protection Protocols” (MPPs), a measure dubbed “Remain in Mexico” (Remain in Mexico City).
Highly criticized by civil rights associations, “Staying in Mexico” was implemented in 2019, under the presidency of Donald Trump, who had made the fight against illegal immigration one of the markers of his policy.
The measure will be abolished “in a speedy and orderly manner,” the ministry wrote in a statement.
The “PPMs have endemic flaws, impose unjustifiable human costs and divert resources and personnel from other priority efforts aimed at securing our border”, justified the ministry.
Shortly after taking office, Mr. Biden had tried to put an end to it for a more humane approach to immigration. But states governed by Republicans, including Texas, had challenged the decision in court and won.
The government then reworked the project and seized the Supreme Court which, on June 30, finally validated the cancellation of the immigration decree by the administration of Joe Biden.
From the start of this policy in January 2019 until its initial suspension under Biden, at least 70,000 people have been returned to Mexico, according to the American Immigration Council.
Human rights organization Human Rights First, based in New York and Washington, said there had been 1,544 cases of murder, rape, torture, kidnapping and other assaults against those returned under the of “Staying in Mexico” between January 2019 and 2021, and that several people, including at least one child, had died.
The Trump administration advocated a “zero tolerance” necessary, according to it, to stem illegal immigration to the United States.
Between December 2021 and June 2022, when the Protocols were back in force, 9,563 people were enrolled in this program, most of whom were not from Mexico but from Nicaragua.
During Biden’s tenure, more than 200,000 people attempting to enter the country illegally were stopped at the border every month and turned back, either under PPMs or under a separate policy, related to the coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19, blocking people at the border.