Judge orders Biden administration to resume 'remain in Mexico' policy

The Biden administration must resume the "remain in Mexico" border policy first authorized under former President Donald Trump, a federal judge in Texas ruled Friday.

District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ordered officials to "enforce and implement" the policy, also known as the Migrant Protection Protocol. The court ruled that the administration violated federal procedural law when it first suspended the border policy back in January and later on when it fully rescinded the policy on June 1. The judge concluded that the policy must stay in place until it can be lawfully suspended.

"Defendants are ordered to enforce and implement MPP in good faith until such time as it has been lawfully rescinded in compliance with the [Administrative Procedures Act] and until such a time as the federal government has sufficient detention capacity to detain all aliens subject to mandatory detention," Kacsmaryk wrote Friday in his order for the lawsuit, which was brought by the states of Texas and Missouri.

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The two states first filed a suit against the Biden administration on April 13, claiming financial injury due to the rescission of the policy, which was first implemented in January 2019. The policy directed immigration authorities to return certain migrants to Mexico as they awaited their removal proceedings.

Missouri claimed in particular that the end of the policy resulted in the need for more state resources to be committed to various programs, including its Human Trafficking Task Force.

Kacsmaryk's ruling was sympathetic to those claims, saying the administration was not deliberative enough and failed to consider the costs that states receiving migrants would face.

To the particular legal question, Kacsmaryk ruled that the termination of the policy was arbitrary and capricious, a standard laid out in the Administrative Procedures Act.

The Biden administration "failed to consider the main benefits of MPP," including that it deterred migrants from attempting to illegally cross the border, allowed the Department of Homeland Security to avoid systemic violation of federal immigration law's detention requirements, and reduced the burden on states caused by tens of thousands of aliens being releases, Kacsmaryk wrote.

The ruling comes as historic numbers of migrants continue to stress the southern border illegally each month. About 212,672 people were encountered attempting to cross the southern border in July, according to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The surge marks the highest number of migrants in more than 21 years.

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The pressure caused Mayorkas to dub the influx "unsustainable."

"A couple of days ago, I was down in Mexico, and I said look, you know, 'If, if our borders are the first line of defense, we're going to lose, and this is unsustainable,'" Mayorkas said in a leaked private conversation with Border Patrol. "We can't continue like this, our people in the field can't continue, and our system isn't built for it."

Representatives for the White House and DHS did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner's requests for comment about the ruling.

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Tags: News, Border Security, Border Crisis, Immigration, Federal Courts, Biden Administration, Mexico, Law, Foreign Policy

Original Author: Jeremy Beaman

Original Location: Judge orders Biden administration to resume 'remain in Mexico' policy