WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is temporarily halting a judge’s order that would have forced the government to reinstate a Trump administration policy forcing thousands to wait in Mexico while seeking asylum in the U.S.
Justice Samuel Alito issued the temporary stay late Friday night. It will remain in effect until Tuesday night so the high court can consider filings in the case.
A federal judge in Texas had previously ordered that the program, informally known as “Remain in Mexico,” be reinstated Saturday. The Biden administration appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Appeal in New Orleans and asked for a delay in re-implementing the program, pending appeal, but that was denied Thursday.
Formally known as the Migration Protection Protocols, the policy required tens of thousands of migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. to turn back to Mexico. It was meant to discourage asylum seekers but critics said it denied people the legal right to seek protection in the U.S. and forced them to wait in dangerous Mexican border cities.
The Texas judge, U.S. District Judge Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, ordered that the program be reinstated in response to a lawsuit filed by the states of Texas and Missouri, whose governors have been seeking to reinstate some of the hardline anti-immigration policies of the Trump administration.
The Biden administration argued in briefs that the president has “clear authority to determine immigration policy” and that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas had discretion in deciding whether to return asylum seekers to Mexico.
In its brief to the Supreme Court on Friday, the administration argued that the policy had been dormant for more than a year and that abruptly reinstating it “would prejudice the United States’ relations with vital regional partners, severely disrupt its operations at the southern border, and threaten to create a diplomatic and humanitarian crisis.”
The Trump administration largely stopped using the “Remain in Mexico” policy at the start of the pandemic, at which point it began turning back virtually everyone crossing the Southwest border under a different protocol — a public health order that remains in effect. The Biden administration said the pre-pandemic policy had been “largely dormant” for months even before the outbreak of COVID-19.
President Joe Biden suspended the program on his first day of office and the Homeland Security Department ended it in June.
Texas and Missouri argued that the Biden administration had not gone through proper administrative procedures in ending the policy, a legal argument that was repeatedly successful in some of the legal challenges brought against Trump administration immigration policies.
Kacsmaryk was nominated to the federal bench by Trump. The 5th Circuit panel that ruled Thursday night included two Trump nominees, Andrew Oldham and Cory Wilson, along with Jennifer Walker Elrod, nominated to the appeals court by President George W. Bush.
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Let’s wait and see what there decision is on Tuesday before we start screaming. The democraps would have demanded a ruling by the full court anyway.
WHY should we wait/? ONCE again the Scotus, shows they care NOT ABOUT AMERICA…
I hope that the inept Supreme Court of No Justice, doesn’t mess this one up, but who knows, with some of these clown judges sympathetic to Biden’s destruction of America policies.
S.C. how about ruling on Biden’s administration failing to protect the U.S. citizens by not securing the borders. Also NOT enforcing the current immigration laws. Immigration is NOT broken , the LAWS are not being enforced.
Keep out migrants based on legally sound stay in first safe country, Mexico, or keep out migrants based on legally sound pandemic public health order – both are obviously lawfu! & if pandemic did not exist would just lawfully revert to the stay in Mexico until application accepted or denied.
How can any politician or judge justify mass illegal migration of millions of unknown unidentifiable unqualified uneducated foreign aliens who have been indoctrinated in Socialism & are taxpayer dependent & have no allegiance or comprehension of US constitution & could care less about rule of law, which now seems only to apply to US law abiding working class citizens who are unable to enter govt or private business without vaccine passport & masks.
And, US taxpayers are now going to be forced to take in hundreds thousands Islamist Afghans at massive expense & just cross our fingers none of them start hating our non-Islam / Sharia law US culture & turn into Islam terrorists or their supporters like Omar & Tlaib who were elected by existing unassimilated communities of foreign alien Islamists allowed to come here by govt political powers who would never permit them or the border migrants into their upscale neighborhoods.
With their TRACK RECORD so far, i wouldn’t trust them to make a ruling, that Water is wet, without buggering it up.
“The Supreme Court is temporarily halting a judge’s order that would have forced the government to reinstate a Trump administration policy forcing thousands to wait in Mexico while seeking asylum in the U.S.”
How about you people stepping away from the bias that you aren’t supposed to have and see this border problem in its true, glaring light and reach an honorable decision to uphold the Constitution, our immigration laws, and heed the voices and concerns of we, the American people?
Are we asking too much here?
AND since the feds FLAT OUT SHANKED UP, on border control/illegal immigration, WHY SHOULDN’T A STATE take charge and step in, to fill the vaccumm left!?
Question: Will the court considered the good promised to the CITIZENS by The Constitution or will it acquiesce to the intolerable demands by the radical left? Tune in next week.
Really? You have to think this one over? We’re in more trouble than I thought.
Surely seems the majority of the “supreme ” court is in reality supreme spawns of satan. satan wants all the power-sound familiar?
And once again, ALL THREE of Trump’ so-called Conservative pics, PROVE ONCE AGAIN they are traitors, and TRUMP SHOULD HAVE SELECTED SOMEONE ELSE!