Border ruling a bad sign for Biden
Texas GOP wins again in blocking his agenda
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court this week struck another major blow to President Joe Biden’s efforts to build what he calls a more “humane” immigration system, courtesy of Texas Republicans who have been fighting Biden’s border policies since he took office.
The court on Tuesday night ordered the Biden administration to reinstate a Trump-era policy requiring asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases are adjudicated, which Biden scrapped soon after taking office.
While the White House has vowed to “vigorously challenge” the ruling, immigration advocates see it as the latest sign that the conservative Supreme Court majority may be prepared to block much of Biden’s immigration agenda.
The ruling was at least the second time this month that the
Immigration experts say the Remain in Mexico program had essentially been dormant since former President Donald Trump issued a public health order at the beginning of the pandemic, under which most migrants are immediately expelled from the United States.
courts have sided with Texas as the GOP-led state challenges Biden’s immigration policies. A federal court in Texas earlier this month blocked the president’s efforts to narrow his administration’s targets for deportation.
“Texas continues to be the leader of the opposition,” said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute. “I think Texas’ larger-than-life role in the political dimension in this has to be understood. This is becoming the new battleground for federalism in our country.”
It’s also a big win for the state’s Republican leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton, who have sought to keep the border front and center as U.S. Customs and Border Protection continues to report record numbers of en
counters with migrants.
Abbott has sought to position himself on the front line, ordering state troopers to arrest migrants for trespassing and rolling out plans to strip state licenses from shelters housing migrant children. He touted the Supreme Court ruling as a “major victory” in a statement on Wednesday.
“Texas will continue to fight back against President Biden’s disastrous open-border policies while working to secure the border and keep our communities safe,” Abbott said.
While the immediate effects of Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling are still unclear, a key component of Biden’s immigration plan is very much in question.
The administration earlier this month proposed an overhaul of the nation’s asylum system intended to speed it up, in part by hiring hundreds of new asylum officers who could decide cases quickly, bypassing deeply backlogged immigration courts.
That is part of a broader effort to expand legal immigration options and followed a 21-point plan the White House released this summer it said would create “an orderly, secure, and well-managed border while treating people fairly and humanely.”
The administration also has added facilities to house unaccompanied children crossing the southern border and worked to more swiftly find permanent sponsors for them. And it has expanded visas and reinstated a program that allows children in some Central American nations to apply for asylum there, instead of traveling to the U.S.
The Biden administration said earlier this year it would allow some 25,000 migrants waiting in Mexico under the program to enter the U.S. It had let in more than 12,500 of them by last month.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement it would comply with the Supreme Court’s order, which it is appealing. The Biden administration could try again to end the remain in Mexico policy in a way that would meet the high court’s approval, which advocates say they expect will happen.
Immigration experts, meanwhile, say the remain in Mexico program had essentially been dormant since former President
Donald Trump issued a public health order at the beginning of the pandemic, under which most migrants are immediately expelled from the United States.
Biden has left that order in place and is still expelling most migrants at the border, though the administration has allowed unaccompanied children and a growing number of families into the country. The policy never applied
to children and it’s unclear to what extent the administration will begin to require families to wait in Mexico that it was otherwise allowing into the U.S.
It’s also unclear whether Mexico will be willing to let the U.S. keep asylum seekers south of the border again. The Trump administration had threatened tariffs to pressure the Mexican government into going along with the plan. DHS said it has “begun to engage with the Government of Mexico in diplomatic discussions surrounding the Migrant Protection Protocols.”
“At some point, the court will likely have to grapple with an argument about Mexico, and it’s at that point the rubber is really going to hit the road,” said Leon Fresco, a D.C.-based immigration attorney. “If the Biden administration says it’s because Mexico isn’t taking back these thirdcountry families who aren’t Mexican, is the court going to throw Joe Biden in jail? Is the court going to throw (Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro) Mayorkas in jail? What’s it going to do to enforce this?”
Still, advocates say the repeated rulings against Biden are a bad sign for his agenda moving forward.
“It should raise alarms for all of us beyond the reinstatement of this egregious policy,” said Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, an immigrants’ rights group. “This really puts at risk Biden’s entire progressive agenda.”