Washington, D.C. (August 17, 2021) - A Center for Immigration Studies analysis examines the decision by a federal judge to block the Biden administration’s termination of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), better known as “Remain in Mexico”. The court made clear that the administration has three choices: Detain illegal migrants, remove or expel them, or send them back across the border. Crucial to the judge’s decision was section 235(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which requires that aliens be detained until they are granted asylum (or other relief) or are removed.
Andrew Arthur, the Center’s resident fellow in law and policy and author of the analysis, said, “If Judge Kacsmaryk’s 'Remain in Mexico' order stands (and it should), the days of 'catch, release, and disperse into the interior of the United States' at the Southwest border are numbered. And the migrant surge there will subside, because if they cannot be free in the United States, few migrants will make the trip to begin with.”
MPP was implemented in January 2019 in response to the surge of aliens coming to the border for whom there was not sufficient detention space and allowed DHS to return non-Mexican migrants caught entering illegally or without proper documentation back to Mexico to await removal hearings. They were then paroled into the United States long enough to apply for asylum, while the Mexican government agreed to provide them with protection for the duration of their stays there.
The Biden administration terminated MPP despite the continued lack of detention space – there are about 2,500 “family unit” spaces, but more than 308,000 migrants in “family units” (FMU) have been apprehended at that border this fiscal year. Just short of 288,000 of these families have come in the six months since the inauguration.
MPP removed the enticement of a quick passage for migrants — mainly from the Northern Triangle — to this country with the expectation of entering illegally with weak and/or fraudulent asylum claims. In January 2019, DHS found that 90 percent of asylum claims by nationals of the Northern Triangle countries were denied.
Their cases nonetheless clogged the immigration court system, making it much more difficult for aliens with valid persecution claims to be granted asylum.
To ensure that the administration complies, the judge ordered it to provide him, on the 15th of every month, monthly totals of aliens encountered at the Southwest border, the number expelled under Title 42 or the INA, its total detention capacity and usage rate, the total number of applicants for admission, the total number of applicants for admission who were paroled, and the total number of applicants for admission who were released on parole “or otherwise”. (Emphasis in original.)
