The US ends Trump’s policy that returned asylum seekers to Mexico
The Biden Government permanently paralyzes the program, which it had suspended when it came to power
The Joe Biden Administration on Tuesday ended an immigration policy launched by his predecessor, Donald Trump, which 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), under which some 70,000 asylum seekers were sent back to Mexico since January 2019 until Biden put that policy on hold on his first day as president, January 20. Now the cessation of the measure is final.
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The policy known as “Stay in Mexico” had created a crisis on the southern border of the United States, saturated by the increasing influx of undocumented immigrants. Mayorkas, through a seven-page memorandum with which he has informed of this decision, has assured that “MPPs are no longer a necessary or viable tool.” The measure will take effect “immediately”. According to the statement, those protocols have not improved border management, nor do they serve Biden’s goals of combating the rationale behind irregular immigration.
The White House decision seemed inevitable after Biden promised during his election campaign that he would end the expulsions to Mexico of asylum seekers, although once in office, the president of the United States left open the possibility of maintaining that controversial policy after ordering it to be reviewed before making a final decision.
The Secretary of Homeland Security has now explained that keeping the policy intact or even modifying it “would not be compatible with the vision and values of this Government, and would constitute a misuse of the department’s resources.”
As the Biden Administration ended the returns of asylum seekers to Mexico, the governor of the border state of Texas, Republican Greg Abbott , signed an emergency law on the situation on the southern border of the country. In his opinion, migrants entering the United States irregularly pose “an imminent threat” due to the “great damage, damage and loss of life and property” that in his opinion they cause.
Mayorkas noted that since February 19, some 11,200 asylum seekers have been able to return to the United States to await the resolution of their cases after Biden suspended the Migrant Protection Protocols. The granting or not of political refugee status in the United States is a process that can take years in saturated immigration courts. The government has yet to decide whether tens of thousands more cases that were dismissed or rejected will be allowed a second 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 entrusted his vice president, Kamala Harris, with the management of the migration crisis on the border with Mexico when the records of illegal arrivals of migrants in all the groups of migrants have practically been broken.
Source: jornada.com.mx, elpais.com
