The reckoning of Remain in Mexico and its impact on human trafficking
BY SABRINA TALUKDER, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 04/28/22 5:17 PM ET
When this photograph was taken in 2018, the subject of border walls between the United States and Mexico was a controversial political topic.
There is a longstanding link between human trafficking and immigration policy that is often invisible in the debate around supporting asylum seekers at the US border.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Biden v. Texas, where the Court will make legal determinations on issues surrounding the Remain in Mexico (RMX) program, a draconian Trump-era immigration policy requiring immigrants arriving at the southwest border to return to Mexico as they await their immigration proceedings. Approximately 60,000 asylum seekers and other vulnerable migrants (including 16,000 children and 500 infants) were subject to RMX. The Biden administration ended the program, only to be sued by Texas and Missouri. With a conservative lower court ruling that the policy be reinstated, the Supreme Court must now determine President Biden’s authority to set or repeal immigration policy in an historic case that will have lasting impacts on immigration policy and executive power.
Both sides of the aisle have failed to uplift the intersection of immigration policies and human trafficking. The anti-trafficking policy framework and advocacy landscape has often been manipulated to serve political interests, often leaving behind the policy and human services needs of migrants that fall victim to trafficking.
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/3470825-the-reckoning-of-remain-in-mexico-and-its-impact-on-human-trafficking/
