US President Joe Biden
By Andrew Chung
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday gave President Joe Biden’s push to end a hardline immigration policy that began under his predecessor, Donald Trump, and that forced tens of thousands of immigrants to stay in Mexico awaiting US hearings on asylum claims.
The judges, in a 5-4 decision authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, reversed a lower court ruling that required Biden to restart Trump’s “stay in Mexico” policy after the states of Texas and Missouri. , led by Republicans, file a lawsuit to keep the program.
The decision strengthens Biden’s pursuit of what he calls a “more humane” approach on the southern border, even as Republicans blame him for what they frame as an immigration crisis.
The judges concluded that the New Orleans-based Federal Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit erred in finding that federal immigration laws required immigrants to return to Mexico if there was not enough space to detain them in the United States.
“The problem is that the statute says none of this,” Roberts wrote, adding that the Fifth Circuit’s decision also wrongly placed a “significant burden” on the US government’s ability to conduct diplomatic relations with Mexico.
The Trump administration adopted the policy, formally dubbed the “Immigrant Protection Protocols,” in 2018 in response to an increase in immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, changing longstanding U.S. practices. It prevented some non-Mexican immigrants, including people seeking asylum for fear of persecution in their home countries, from being free in the United States to await the immigration process. Instead, they were sent back to Mexico.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung)
#Supreme #Court #Supports #Bidens #Initiative #Trumps #Stay #Mexico #Policy
