Joe Biden’s efforts to erase Donald Trump’s record on immigration hit a snag this last week when a federal judge ordered the Trump “Remain in Mexico” policy to be reinstated. The administration was sued by Texas and Missouri after the Department of Homeland Security ordered the policy terminated in June.
This week, an appeals court upheld the decision of U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk to reinstate the program, thus handing the Biden administration another headache to go along with Afghanistan and the illegal alien surge at the border.
The Remain in Mexico policy had been very successful in tamping down the number of asylum seekers at the border. Formally known as Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), Biden declared an end to the program on his first day in office.
The Biden administration appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Appeal in New Orleans and asked for a delay in re-implementing the program, formally known as Migrant Protection Protocols, pending appeal. The administration argued in briefs that the president has “clear authority to determine immigration policy” and that the Secretary of the Department of Homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, had discretion in deciding whether to return asylum seekers to Mexico.
Lawyers for the states of Texas said Missouri, which challenged the suspension of MPP, opposed a stay of Kacsmaryk’s order. They said the Biden administration had not gone through proper procedures in ending the policy. And they argued that after the policy was implemented immigrants without legitimate claims for asylum had begun to return to their home countries voluntarily.
“Even if the Government were correct that long-term compliance with the district court’s injunction would cause irreparable harm, it presents no reason to think that it cannot comply with the district court’s requirement of good faith while the appeal proceeds,” the ruling said.
Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy was just one in a series of negotiated agreements with other nations to stem the flow of illegal aliens to our border. Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras all signed asylum deals with the Trump administration that limited the number of people seeking asylum in the U.S.
How successful were those programs? “During Fiscal Year 2019, more than 71% of migrants apprehended at the U.S. Southwest border came from El Salvador, Guatemala, or Honduras—this ACA agreement confronts illegal migration at the source,” reads the DHS explainer on the agreement.
The deal didn’t shut the flow of illegals from Central America entirely, but it cut the problem down to a manageable size. Biden, suicidally, wants to undo those agreements and is paying the price by seeing the numbers of illegals captured at the border skyrocket once again.
Biden may have no choice but to begin reestablishing Trump-era policies at the border. The heads of his radical allies will explode, but if the border situation gets much worse, the humanitarian disaster will destroy any hope he had of being re-elected and the Democrats returning to power.