Biden admin expands Trump-era 'Remain in Mexico' to Rio Grande Valley sector, citing court orderThe Biden administration said on Friday that it has expanded the Trump-era "Remain in Mexico" program, which it had initially abolished before being blocked by a court order, to the Rio Grande Valley sector -- typically the busiest part of the border for illegal migration.
A DHS spokesperson confirmed to Fox that enrollments in the program, officially called the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), began on Jan. 19 in the sector, with migrants being returned to Mexico via the Brownsville port of entry. Migrants are also being returned from San Diego and El Paso. CBS News first reported the expansion into RGV.
BIDEN ADMIN MOVES TO END TRUMP-ERA ‘REMAIN-IN-MEXICO,’ ADMITS IT ‘LIKELY' HELPED REDUCE ILLEGAL MIGRATION
The Remain-in-Mexico policy was set up in 2019 as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to end "catch-and-release" by which migrants were released into the interior as their asylum claims were processed.
MPP saw migrants returned to Mexico for their proceedings, and it was hailed by Trump officials as a way to remove a key pull factor for migrants coming north. Critics described the policy as cruel, arguing that it resulted in migrants camped out at the border, and put at risk of violence and exploitation by gangs.
The Biden administration began unraveling the program earlier this year and officially ended it in June. But a federal court order ordered it to be reinstated after Texas and Missouri sued, claiming that the administration had not conducted a required analysis of the policy before scrapping it. The Supreme Court upheld that order.
The DHS spokesperson noted that DHS "has repeatedly sought to terminate MPP."
"DHS currently is, however, under a court order to reimplement MPP in good faith. DHS continues to fight in the courts, including in a pending challenge before the Supreme Court. In the interim, DHS is committed to abiding by the court-mandated reimplementation of MPP in the most humane way possible," the spokesperson said..............
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-trump-remain-mexico-rio-grande-valley-court-order
