(Washington) After several legal setbacks, the Biden administration on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to intervene to end Donald Trump’s contested and inherited migration policy of returning asylum seekers to Mexico during the review of their file.
The government of the Democratic president has seized the high court, with a majority conservative, to examine the decision of an appeals court which ordered this month the continuation of this program baptized “Stay in Mexico”, put in implemented in 2019 by the previous administration, according to court documents consulted Thursday by AFP.
Upon his arrival at the White House in January 2021, Joe Biden quickly began to dismantle this controversial policy, officially called “Migrant Protection Protocols” (PPM), but a Texas court ordered its reinstatement in August.
The United States thus had to partially reactivate this policy, in agreement with Mexico, while challenging the decision to a federal court of appeal, without succeeding.
This program “exposes migrants to unacceptable risks” and “undermines the efforts of the executive to manage regional immigration”, indicates the text submitted to the temple of American law.
Between January 2019 and December 2020, at least 70,000 asylum seekers, mostly from Central America, were returned to Mexico under this program, creating a humanitarian crisis on this side of the border, exacerbated by pandemic, according to the American Immigration Council.
The United States faces a massive influx of migrants to its southern border. The Mexican authorities recorded more than 190,000 migrants this year between January and September, three times more than in 2020.