The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court if it really has to continue a successful policy to thwart illegal migration instated by the previous administration. The administration is asking that the Supreme Court take its appeal during the current session and not wait for next year’s.
The Biden border crisis is entirely self-made. Joe Biden put a halt to the Trump administration’s border security policies in the first days of his administration. Those executive actions along with his campaign promises of blanket amnesty, no deportations, and ending construction of the border wall all came together before he was even inaugurated to create the current humanitarian and public health crisis on the southern border. Biden governs as a member of the open borders wing of the Democrat Party. One of the first policies to be nixed by Biden was the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), commonly called the Remain in Mexico policy.
In January 2019 the Trump administration installed the Remain in Mexico policy in cooperation with the Mexican government. Trump secured the agreement with Mexico which said that illegal migrants would be turned back to the other side of the border to wait for their asylum claims to be processed on the U.S. side of the border. This policy served as a tool to ease overcrowding at the border and lessen the burden placed on border law enforcement officials. Mexico allowed them to stay in communities along the border, most in camps set up as a shelter. Instead of waiting in the United States for their cases to be heard, the migrants waited on the other side of the border in Mexico.
This along with the Trump administration’s other programs worked to stop the floods of migrants heading to the southern border with the intention to cross into Texas and other border states. Trump did not support the Obama-Biden approach of catch and release for illegal migrants. From the time that Biden tried to sign a stop to the policy, his action has been legally challenged. Both Texas and Missouri sued in federal court and the Biden administration has been blocked by court rulings.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued a memo to formally end the program in October, and DHS stressed to reporters at the time its view “that MPP has endemic flaws, imposed unjustifiable human costs, pulled resources and personnel away from other priority efforts, and failed to address the root causes of irregular migration.”
Earlier this month, the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the Biden administration’s bid to terminate the policy. The administration was ordered to reinstate the policy. A deal was cut between the Biden administration and Mexican officials to bring the program back. Making good on their promise to appeal the ruling, the Biden administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene on Wednesday. Specifically, the administration wants to know if it must continue to implement the policy. The petition says that the Supreme Court should review the case because previous decisions against ending Remain in Mexico we made on “erroneous interpretations of federal laws. The appeal alleges that the court’s ruling incorrectly interprets the Immigration and Nationality Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.
The Justice Department noted that the 5th Circuit ruled that U.S. code requires DHS to maintain the Remain in Mexico policy. The agency argued that if this is correct, then all other administrations — including the Trump administration — were in violation of federal law since 1997, when the specific section of the code in question went into effect.
The Justice Department further argued that the lower court had erred in its decision that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s decision earlier this year to terminate MPP had no legal effect. The department stated that Mayorkas had done “exactly” what he was supposed to do and the 5th Circuit’s decision “ignored bedrock principles of administrative law.”
“In short, the lower courts have commanded DHS to implement and enforce the short-lived and controversial MPP program in perpetuity. And they have done so despite determinations by the politically accountable Executive Branch that MPP is not the best tool for deterring unlawful migration; that MPP exposes migrants to unacceptable risks; and that MPP detracts from the Executive’s foreign-relations efforts to manage regional migration,” the petition stated.
“Incorrectly interprets” is polite legal-speak for you don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t think the Supreme Court will correctly interpret the law favorably for the Biden administration either. Regardless, the Biden administration is beholden to its open-borders rhetoric and will persist to do all it can to stop common-sense programs that curb illegal migration. Biden’s actions are deliberate and he has a willing enabler in DHS Secretary Mayorkas. Both men prefer to say that the border is closed, secure and that the administration is making progress on processing migrants. The administration has gone back to the bad old days when illegal immigrants were apprehended and released with a date to return to have their claim processed or heard by a judge. The system is so overwhelmed during the Biden border crisis that now those apprehended are not even given a date to return to an ICE office for processing. They are released into the interior of the country so that the border isn’t so crowded. The administration is moving people around to cover up the numbers. The court battles continue.
Via Hot Air
