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The highest judicial authority in the United States authorized President Joe Biden on Thursday to end the Stay in Mexico program, introduced by Donald Trump and under which asylum seekers are sent back to await the resolution of their cases on the other side. of the border.
With Xavier Vilà, RFI correspondent in Washington, and AFP
With its decision by 5 votes to 4, the Supreme Court of the United States overturns the ruling of a lower-ranking judge, who ruled in favor of a joint lawsuit filed by the states of Texas and Missouri that requested that immigrants waiting asylum to do so in Mexico while their case is resolved, a policy devised by Donald Trump.
Now the high court refutes it, arguing that federal immigration laws grant the president absolute discretion -as happened with Trump-, and that -therefore- Biden can end the migration protection protocols, popularly known as “Stay here.” in Mexico”.
Oxygen balloon for Biden
The court ruling is excellent news for Biden’s immigration policy, which was on the ropes, and an oxygen balloon after several political setbacks due to the latest Supreme Court rulings on abortion, carrying weapons or fighting against climate change.
Chief Justice John Roberts, along with conservative Brett Kavanaugh and the three liberal justices, ruled that federal immigration law grants discretion to the executive branch, meaning that it may or may not expel asylum seekers.
The court’s decision does not mean that these people will enter the United States tomorrow. In fact, what the Biden administration has attempted to do is put into effect a program similar to Stay in Mexico. That is very important for the community to understand.
Some 70,00 people had enrolled in the asylum waiting program in Mexico after its launch in 2019, a figure that fell to 8,000 when it was reopened 6 months ago when the demand from Texas and Missouri prospered, which has now revoked the supreme.
During Biden’s tenure, each month more than 200,000 people who tried to enter the country were sent back, invoking “Stay in Mexico” or a public health rule applied since the pandemic that blocks people at the border.
Republicans criticize the sentence
“It will only embolden the open border policies of the Biden administration” that it should “restore and fully enforce” Stay in Mexico “to ensure border security because it is the only humane thing to do,” said the Texas governor, Republican Greg Abbott.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) takes the opposite view. The Court “is correct in rejecting the spurious argument that this cruel policy is mandated by law,” said Judy Rabinovitz of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.
This ruling “will not change reality overnight,” but “opens up the possibility of a more humane and common-sense approach to asylum on the border between the United States and Mexico,” said Óscar Chacón, executive director of Alianza Américas. , a coalition that brings together 58 migrant defense associations in the United States.
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