Feds work to allow asylum-seekers to wait in U.S.

WASHINGTON – The Biden administration is making another attempt to end a Trump-era immigration program that a court ordered be reinstated, offering a more detailed description about the "benefits and cost" of forcing some asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases are pending.

"I have concluded that there are inherent problems with the program that no amount of resources can sufficiently fix," Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas wrote.

Republicans have said the program, known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, stemmed illegal migration, while human rights advocates have assailed it as inhumane.

While the administration is still following the court order to restart the program, it is hoping that the new memo addresses the issues raised by a federal judge in Texas, who ruled in August that the justification Mayorkas provided in June for ending the program was "arbitrary and capricious."

Condemning the program while simultaneously having to put plans in place to restart it illustrates how difficult it has been for the Biden administration to fulfill one of President Joe Biden's biggest campaign promises: reversing some of the restrictive immigration policies put in place by former President Donald Trump.

The program, also referred to as Remain in Mexico, "had endemic flaws, imposed unjustifiable human costs, pulled resources and personnel away from other priority efforts and did not address the root causes of irregular migration," Mayorkas said in a statement Friday, adding that it "fails to provide the fair process and humanitarian protections that individuals deserve under the law."

The Biden administration has continued using a public health rule Trump put in place at the beginning of the pandemic that gives border officials the authority to turn away migrants, even those seeking asylum. It has been used about 60% of the time, and many have been allowed into the country to pursue asylum claims.

The Supreme Court refused to block his order, and the administration has been making an effort to restart it, despite opposition. (The program faced court challenges during the Trump administration, as well.)

The program forces asylum-seeking migrants who left a third country and traveled through Mexico to wait there until the U.S. makes a decision. It was put in place at the beginning of 2019 and was one of several measures taken during the Trump administration to limit who can seek asylum.

Human rights advocates have argued that the program forced people to stay in unsanitary tent encampments where they faced harsh weather as well as the danger of sexual assault, kidnapping and torture.

In a Thursday court filing, Missouri and Texas argued that the sharp increase in Haitian migrants who arrived in Del Rio, Texas, last month could have been prevented if the program had been in place. "The crisis at the border continues, in no small part because defendants are not complying in good faith" with the court's order to restart the program, according to the filing. Without the program in place, the plaintiffs said, thousands of migrants "have reason to think they can freely enter the United States."

In the new termination memo, Mayorkas acknowledged that data suggest there were fewer illegal border crossings while the program was in place, a point Republicans have been hammering as the country saw the highest number of illegal crossings over the past 12 months in at least 60 years.