The Joe Biden Administration dictates “with immediate effect” that the program known as “Stay in Mexico” ceases.
The Joe Biden Administration on Tuesday ended an immigration policy launched by former President Donald Trump that forced asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their hearings in US immigration courts. The Secretary of National Security, Alejandro Mayorkas , has decreed the end of the “Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP)”, with which some 70,000 asylum seekers were sent back to Mexico from January 2019 until that policy was suspended by Biden on his first day as president, last January.
The policy known as “Stay in Mexico” has created a crisis on the southern border of the United States by becoming saturated with the increasing influx of undocumented immigrants. “The MPP is no longer a necessary or viable tool,” Mayorkas assured, through a seven-page memorandum with which he reported the decision, “with immediate effect.” According to the statement, the program has not improved border management, nor does it serve Biden’s goals of addressing the fundamental reasons behind irregular immigration.
The White House decision seemed inevitable after Biden promised during his election campaign that he would eliminate such controversial politics, although he left open the possibility of maintaining it after ordering a review before ending it permanently. For the Secretary of Homeland Security, keeping the policy intact or modifying it “would not be compatible with the vision and values of this government, and would be a misuse of the department’s resources.” Meanwhile, the governor of Texas, Republican Greg Abbott , signed an emergency law due to the situation on the border with Mexico. In his opinion, migrants entering the US illegally pose “an imminent threat” due to “major damage, damage and loss of life and property.”
Mayorkas noted that since February 19, some 11,200 asylum seekers registered with the MPP have been able to return to the United States to await the resolution of their cases, a process that can take years in saturated immigration courts. The government has yet to decide whether tens of thousands of additional cases that were dismissed or rejected will be given another chance.
The Biden Administration insists on sending the message to Central Americans that now is not the time to migrate to the United States. As Barack Obama did with him when he was his right hand man, Biden tasked Vice President Kamala Harris with managing the migration crisis at the border with Mexico when virtually all records for illegal migrant arrivals across all age groups have been broken.