Since the beginning of his administration, Biden has tried to end the policy, which sends back to Mexico certain non-Mexican citizens who entered the United States – instead of detaining or releasing them in the United States – – while playing their immigration procedures. out.
The sentence was 5 to 4 and states that the immigration law gives the federal government the discretion to end the program, formally known as Protocols for the Protection of Migrants. The case will return to the lower courts for additional proceedings around its last attempt to end the program. Biden’s bid to end the program remains in effect, but Thursday’s ruling suggested that such an order should be lifted soon.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said the relevant immigration status “clearly confers discretionary authority to return foreigners to Mexico during the pending immigration process.”
“The use of the word‘ may ’in‘ the question of law, ’Roberts wrote,‘ makes it clear that the return of contiguous territory is a tool that the Secretary (DHS) ’has the authority, but not the duty “to use”.
The Supreme Court decision is a major victory for Biden’s immigration agenda, as the administration has suffered several losses in the lower courts in its efforts to reverse Trump’s hard-line immigration policies. Several of the red states that challenged the termination of migrant protection protocols have also filed lawsuits questioning Biden’s other attempts to move away from the aggressive approach of his predecessor and these cases are still making their way to lower courts. .
Roberts was joined by Liberal judges and Judge Brett Kavanaugh, and Kavanaugh also presented a concurring opinion. Judges Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett wrote dissenting opinions, along with the other dissidents.
In its ruling, the court said lower courts must now consider whether the government complied with administrative law with the most recent attempt by the Biden administration – with a note published in October – to put an end to Trump-era politics.
Biden’s offer to end the program had been challenged in court by a Texas-led coalition of red states that argued it would end incompatibility with immigration law. They also argued that the administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires agencies to take certain procedural steps when implementing the policy, in the way migrant protection protocols were developed.
The lower courts, which refused to consider the October note, will now examine whether the last attempt to end the program complied with the Administrative Procedure Act.
Roberts wrote that the government’s authority to release some migrants on parole, rather than detaining them or sending them back to Mexico, is not “unlimited,” although he noted the requirement of the law. of immigration that parole be used “case by case”.
“And according to the APA, the exercise of discretion (by the Department of Homeland Security) within this statutory framework must be reasonable and reasonably explained,” Roberts said.
His opinion also said the lower court was wrong to block the completion of the Biden program, citing a court ruling early this term on Thursday that said lower courts could not issue class orders that prevented officials to carry out certain immigration policies.
This suggests that lower courts, in the next round of “Stay in Mexico” litigation, will not have the authority to block Biden’s offer to end the program, but it was not immediately clear whether the administration can put end politics immediately.
Judges’ retention of lower judicial authority may also limit future efforts to challenge the immigration policies of Democratic and Republican administrations in court, meaning immigrant rights activists may have won in the short term. term with Thursday’s ruling as they suffer a long-term setback. .
“While we are glad that today’s decision will put an end to the cruel and inhumane program of remaining in Mexico, deprive federal courts of their ability to issue court orders in cases of immigration enforcement and detention not filed by individual immigrants will have serious ramifications in the rights of immigrants in the future. ” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, director of policy for the American Immigration Council, said in a statement. “Limiting access to justice to challenge immigration enforcement cases sets a dangerous precedent by giving agencies uncontrolled power to arrest, detain and deport.”
The program, which was first implemented in 2019 under then-President Donald Trump, has been criticized by immigrant rights advocates, who argue it is inhumane and exposes asylum seekers to credible claims on terms. dangerous and miserable in Mexico.
Before the Trump administration launched the “Let’s Remain in Mexico” program, no other administration had taken a similar approach toward non-Mexican asylum seekers that required them to remain in Mexico during their court proceedings. immigration to the United States. Biden campaigned to end politics and has said it “goes against everything we stand for as a nation of immigrants.”
Biden has struggled with an increasing number of border crossings throughout his administration amid mass migration to the Western Hemisphere. Since October, border authorities have encountered migrants more than a million times on the U.S.-Mexico border, although many have been turned down under a separate pandemic emergency rule. The Department of Homeland Security, however, has argued that the “Stay in Mexico” policy has a high human cost and is not an effective use of resources.
Immigrant rights defenders celebrated the verdict on Thursday. Taylor Levy, an immigration lawyer who worked on hundreds of MPP cases, said in a statement that the decision was a “victory for tens of thousands of people who were stranded by Remain in Mexico and subjected to a unimaginable cruelty. “
Judy Rabinovitz, special advocate for the ACLU Immigrant Rights Project, said in the statement that with the case going back to a lower court, the Biden administration “can and should move quickly to finally end the “permanence in Mexico” forever, a result that has been greatly and unjustly delayed. “
According to Biden’s Justice Department, the relevant immigration law had never before been interpreted as requiring the government to send migrants back to Mexico with pending immigration procedures that it could not keep in detention.
“All presidential administrations have understood that this is only a purely discretionary authority. This is for the previous administration,” Attorney General Elizabeth Prelogar said in oral arguments in April.
He also argued that keeping “Remaining in Mexico” in place would not solve the essential problem: that Congress had ordered that immigration officials “arrest” asylum seekers whose procedures are pending, but that lawmakers do not sufficient resources have been appropriated for these detention centers.
“Returning to contiguous territory may not be the solution here,” Prelogar said, though he noted that when the Trump administration pursued the policy, only 6.5% of migrants found at the border were registered. to the program.
“It has inherent limitations,” Prelogar said, noting the acceptance the program requires of Mexico, a sovereign nation.
In his concurrence, Kavanaugh denounced the “inability of several decades of political branches to provide DHS with sufficient facilities to detain noncitizens seeking to enter the United States pending its immigration proceedings.”
In a dissent joined by Judges Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, Alito wrote that the government has tried to “release to this country an incalculable number of foreigners who are very likely to be withdrawn if they appear at their hearings. ‘expulsion’.
“This practice violates the clear terms of the law, but the Court looks the other way,” he wrote.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who is partly joined by the other three dissidents, wrote a dissenting opinion that said she did not believe lower courts had the authority to reach the legal issues underlying the case.
Biden first tried to suspend the program the day he took office in 2021, and sparked demand from the Red States. That June, DHS Secretary Alexander Mayorkas issued a note formally ending the policy, but a Texas federal judge blocked the measure in August. The Supreme Court later refused to suspend the sentence while the appeal was pending, effectively demanding that Biden review “Remain in Mexico.”
In October, Mayorkas issued a new memorandum ordering the termination of the program, which sought to remedy the procedural flaws set forth in the August district court ruling. One point of discussion in the lower court proceedings was whether that October note made the above decisions controversial, and the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals found no.
Politics resumed last December. Since then, more than 5,000 migrants have been returned to Mexico as part of the program, according to the International Organization for Migration. Nicaragua, Cuba, Colombia and Venezuela are among the nationalities enrolled in the program.
The most important issue in the case was the level of discretion left to the executive branch by the immigration statutes in question, which were amended several times over the last century. A provision of the law says that asylum seekers whose claims are still being examined “should” be detained pending such proceedings.
Another provision, adopted in 1996, said the federal government “can return” migrants who are still awaiting their formalities in the contiguous territory from which they entered. Another provision says that, “on a case-by-case basis,” immigration officials can release migrants whose proceedings are pending.
Opponents of the Biden administration in the case had argued that the administration had been releasing migrants on parole in a …