(Headline USA) As the crisis at the southern border continues to grow worse, a federal judge has overturned a controversial Biden immigration policy that will have major implications for the border crisis.
U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled that the Biden administration must reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” policy, a Trump-era federal provision that required migrants to wait in Mexico for their asylum hearing to be processed. Without the policy, many migrants are released into the U.S. and never return for their hearings.
“As the court noted, the policy had been very successful in discouraging meritless asylum claims, since aliens could no longer make such claims as a quick way of being released into the United States,” the Immigration Reform Law Institute said in a statement. “When the Biden administration rescinded the policy and started releasing asylum seekers into the United States again, it did not even mention how effective the policy had been, or explain why it was getting rid of it despite its effectiveness. This failure to explain, the court found, made the Biden rescission of the policy—which has helped set off the current border surge—arbitrary and capricious.”
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas reversed former President Donald Trump’s policy in June, but the decision was challenged in a lawsuit by Texas and Missouri. The federal judge ruled in the states’ favor, saying that the Department of Homeland Security “failed to consider several critical factors” when overturning the policy.
“The court also noted that federal law requires the detention of asylum seekers pending their hearings if they are not returned to Mexico, and that immigration authorities currently lack the facilities to detain the massive surge of asylum seekers the rescission of the wait in Mexico policy has caused,” IRLI added. “The court accordingly ordered that the wait in Mexico policy must be resumed, and may not be rescinded again until the government has the capacity to comply with the law and detain the asylum seekers it does not send to Mexico.”
The judge also gave the Biden administration a seven-day delay on the ruling’s effect so they can appeal.
“I have determined that MPP does not adequately or sustainably enhance border management in such a way as to justify the program’s extensive operational burdens and other shortfalls,” Mayorkas wrote in a at the time of the June reversal. “During the course of the program, border encounters increased during certain periods and decreased during others. Moreover, in making my assessment, I share the belief that we can only manage migration in an effective, responsible, and durable manner if we approach the issue comprehensively, looking well beyond our own borders.”
The debate over the policy comes as illegal immigration has surged to the highest level in 21 years.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection released federal data showing that 212,672 illegal immigrants were encountered by border agents in July alone. That does not include the illegal immigrants who were able to enter the country undetected.
Biden has continued to take criticism for the crisis at the border, and so far he has done little to remedy the situation.
“Encounters of unaccompanied children increased 24 percent, with 18,962 encounters in July compared with 15,234 in June,” CBP said. “In July, the average number of unaccompanied children in CBP custody was 1,363 per day, compared with an average of 794 per day in June.”
