SCOTUS’s Narrow Ruling on Remain in Mexico Punts on the Real Question
By Mark Krikorian on July 2, 2022
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Biden administration may end the Remain in Mexico program (formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, or MPP) started by the Trump administration. In fact, since the lower court’s injunction against the termination of MPP is invalidated, it seems like MPP turns into a pumpkin immediately. But this isn’t really the victory some on the Democratic side seem to think.
It’s true the Court ruled that the district court could not enjoin the termination of MPP. But the administration wasn’t using MPP for more than a handful of border-jumpers in any case; of about 1.2 million illegal aliens “encountered” at the southern border from December through May, only about 5,000 were required to remain in Mexico. The border is truly a disaster, but ending MPP as the Biden folks are using it isn’t likely to make things much worse.
The justices sent the most consequential questions back to the lower courts. Of those, the less salient one is whether the administration complied with the various requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act when issuing the termination. The lower courts could still find that the termination was “arbitrary and capricious” or violated the APA in some other way. This is the weapon liberal judges used against Trump’s various immigration actions, but even if they find APA violations, SCOTUS has said only it can issue such injunctions. In any case, it’s likely Biden’s DHS will jump through the needed hoops to comply and kill MPP once and for all (well, at least until the DeSantis administration comes in).
https://cis.org/Krikorian/SCOTUSs-Narrow-Ruling-Remain-Mexico-Punts-Real-Question
