The United States formally ended the “Stay in Mexico” asylum policy established by former President Donald Trump on Tuesday in the face of the growing arrival of undocumented immigrants to the country’s southern border, the Joe Biden government reported Tuesday.
Under this program, tens of thousands of asylum seekers, mostly from Central America, were sent back to Mexico in the last two years pending the resolution of their cases.
“The MPP is no longer a necessary or viable tool,” said the head of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Alejandro Mayorkas, in a memorandum announcing the cancellation.
The administration of President Joe Biden put the program, known as Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), on hiatus shortly after taking office on January 20. Since then, more than 11,000 registered migrants have been allowed into the United States to apply for asylum, a DHS official told Reuters on Tuesday.
Biden, a Democrat, has reversed many of the restrictive immigration policies of former President Donald Trump, a Republican, arguing that they did not comply with US asylum laws.
Republicans have criticized Biden’s measures, including ending the MPP program, saying it encouraged the arrival of migrants to the US-Mexico border in recent months.
In a Feb. 2 decree, Biden asked US agencies to review the MPP program and consider ending it.
Tuesday’s memorandum formally ending the MPP program, signed by DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, said the program did not “adequately or sustainably improve border management,” noting that apprehensions at the border increased by occasions while the program was in effect.
According to his assessment, the program has not improved border management, nor does it serve Biden’s goals of addressing the fundamental reasons behind irregular immigration.
Mayorkas said the MPP did not solve the security problems, as more than a quarter of those enrolled in the program were intercepted trying to cross the border again.
It also did not expedite the procedures, even more delayed with the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused the temporary closure of the immigration courts.
Some 68,000 people were returned to Mexico in the framework of the “Stay in Mexico,” according to official US figures.
“In addition, in making my assessment, I share the belief that we can only manage migration in an effective, responsible and lasting way if we address the issue holistically, looking far beyond our own borders,” Mayorkas wrote.
With information from AFP and Reuters
