Biden wanted to end it: USA reactivate Trump’s asylum program

Biden wanted to end it
USA reactivates Trump’s asylum program

It is a thorn in the side of President Biden: The “Remain in Mexico” program designed by his predecessor Trump. According to this, asylum seekers from Central America are sent to Mexico until their procedure in the USA is completed. Now he has to reintroduce it anyway.

The U.S. government reluctantly resumes a controversial program from the time of former President Donald Trump, in which asylum seekers from Central America are initially sent back to Mexico. As the US Department of Homeland Security announced, the policy known under the name “Remain in Mexico” (in German: “Stay in Mexico”) will be implemented again from next Monday following the approval of the Mexican government.

Trump announced the policy officially known as the “Protocols for the Protection of Migrants” in late 2018. On the basis of a decree by the then right-wing populist president, tens of thousands of asylum seekers from South and Central America who had reached the United States via Mexico were sent back to Mexico until their asylum procedure was clarified. Trump’s successor Joe Biden, who had promised a more humane migration and refugee policy during the election campaign, wanted to end this approach. However, after lawsuits from the states of Texas and Missouri, a federal court ordered the program to be restarted. The US Supreme Court then rejected a motion by the Biden government in August to overturn that ruling.

In order to be able to send asylum seekers back to Mexico from Central America, the US government needed the approval of the government in Mexico City. This approval has now been given: Mexico declared itself ready “for humanitarian reasons and temporarily” to accept people with an ongoing asylum procedure in the USA and not to send them back to their countries of origin. However, the US government again made its rejection of this policy clear. Homeland Security Minister Alejandro Mayorkas said the program had serious shortcomings, created suffering that could not be justified, removed human and other resources from other priorities and did not address the root causes of migration. The legal battle over “Remain in Mexico” continues.

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