Is Biden Complying With Court Order to Bring Back ‘Remain in Mexico’ Policy? Not So Much
Mark Morgan / James Carafano /
President Joe Biden is committing the biggest scofflaw since the Chicago cops partnered with Al Capone during Prohibition.
Paying lip service to a judicial order to reinstitute the “Remain in Mexico” program to help to stem the flood of illegal migration, while thousands of illegal aliens enter the country every day, the Biden plan for implementing the Migrant Protection Protocols will, at best, send people in the single digits back across the border into Mexico. It is a complete sham.
Yet again, Biden’s words are not to be believed. The administration’s actions reveal what is really happening. With respect to Migrant Protection Protocols, Biden and company are thumbing their nose at the judge, at the law, and at all Americans.
Believe it or not, Congress first enacted the protocols—commonly called the “Remain in Mexico” policy—in 1996 legislation. Former President Donald Trump, however, was the first president to take the initiative serious. That was because he inherited a serious problem created by the Flores Settlement Agreement, a judicial decree that arbitrarily limited the detention of immigrant unaccompanied minors and families who illegally entered our borders.
Rather than attempt to close the loophole created by the decree, the Obama administration simply rolled over, implementing the practice of “catch and release,” allowing illegal aliens into the country, knowing they would never comply with a lawful order of removal following the completion of their immigration adjudication.
Trump recognized that “catch and release” was eroding the integrity of our nation’s immigration system, hampered effective border security, and created a magnet that incentivized more illegal migration. Migrant Protection Protocols was established to shut down this loophole by sending illegal border crossers back to Mexico while they proceed with their request for asylum and entry into the U.S.
Many illegal aliens that enrolled in Migrant Protection Protocols returned home on their own, while hundreds of thousands were deterred from even trying, because they knew they didn’t have a valid claim of asylum. By any measure, Migrant Protection Protocols was a success.
The program was designed mainly to address the historic flow of illegal alien families from the northern triangle countries that exploited the loopholes former President Barack Obama failed to address. Biden ordered an immediate halt to Migrant Protection Protocols when he came into office. To this day, he marveled to U.S. governors he doesn’t understand why there is an illegal flood at the border.
Some states sued the administration, arguing they were directly and adversely impacted by Biden halting this successful immigration enforcement tool. The U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Texas decided with the states and ordered the Biden administration to reinstate Migrant Protection Protocols “in good faith.” Because the judge correctly doubted the administration’s willingness to comply with the reinstatement order, the judge ordered it to deliver periodic reports to the court.
Of course, the administration did everything it could to slow roll the reinstatement of Migrant Protection Protocols, taking almost six months to restart the program and only in a single sector among the nine sectors along the southwest border. As anticipated, the numbers are laughable.
Under Trump, with far less border crossers, the Department of Homeland Security was turning back hundreds a day. Biden, with the highest numbers of illegal aliens crossing the border in modern history, is doing anything but.
“Not only are they enrolling low numbers (less than 300 in the month of December with a backdrop of 178,000 encounters), not a single family was enrolled,” points out Mark Morgan, who helped run this program under Trump. “They were all single adults. And to make it more ridiculous—the single adults were from countries other than the Northern Triangle countries. It’s a complete joke.”
According to a knowledgeable source inside the federal immigration court system, each of the judges who processed asylum applications was doing 400 hearings a day or more under Trump. Today, the administration is planning on four hearings a day—for the whole border. Mexico has agreed to take three Mexican citizens back per day. That’s sum total.
And it’s not just the low numbers of enrollees, it’s the demographics they’re enrolling. Migrant Protection Protocols were designed to deal effectively with family units. The Biden administration has been putting single adults into Migrant Protection Protocols instead—folks that arguably should be and can be easily deported.
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas declared that the department would comply with the order, while simultaneously declaring the administration would continue their efforts to immediately rescind the program and overturn the court’s decision. This is a far cry from “good faith,” and does nothing to actually stem the flow of illegal immigration or address the continued exploitation by the cartels of the loopholes in our immigration system.
This not only is bad policy, it is destroying the credibility of the department. Every time Mayorkas visits the border, he tweets out that he is dedicated to providing the agents the resources they deserve. Yet when they ask for a change in policy and reinstitute policies that work, like Migrant Protection Protocols, he looks the other way and does nothing.
Defying the courts, Biden and Mayorkas are turning the Department of Security into the Department of Insecurity. It would be like the cops running alcohol for Capone. Americas ought to be completely outraged. Mayorkas should be forced to resign or be impeached. Biden should be held accountable.
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