Why The Biden Administration Is Relaunching Trump's Controversial 'Remain in Mexico' Immigration Policy

Felicia Rangel-Samponaro says she’s got déjà vu. Just 11 months ago, President Biden suspended the Trump Administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP)—also known as “Remain in Mexico, ” a set of rules requiring asylum seekers to wait south of the border while their cases are adjudicated in the U. S. On Monday, the controversial policy is officially back on the books. An August district court order, citing a technical problem with the Biden Administration’s attempt to terminate MPP, forced the Administration to reinstate the program. The Administration says it’s now obeying the court order while simultaneously appealing to terminate the program. On Dec. 6, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officially relaunched MPP at the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez port of entry. While the Biden Administration’s iteration of MPP includes more humanitarian safeguards, like access to the COVID-19 vaccine, the basic tenet of the program—which forces asylum seekers to wait in Mexico—is unchanged. Under Trump, some 71, 000 people were enrolled in MPP; many thousands lived in over-crowded shelters or makeshift encampments in Mexican border cities like Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez and Matamoros, where they were easy targets for members of organized crime. The policy whiplash has sent NGOs, shelter organizers, lawyers and others, like Rangel-Samponaro, who work to care for people marooned by MPP, scrambling to get back up to speed. “To now see [MPP] coming back to light is painful, ” says Marisa Limón Garza, deputy director at the Hope Border Institute, a nonprofit immigrant research and advocacy organization based in El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez. “Despite any effort to make it more humane…we know that that’s just not possible. It’s been disappointing. ”