WASHINGTON -- The Biden administration on Tuesday formally ended a Trump-era immigration policy that forced asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court.
A seven-page memo by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas marked the end of the "Migrant Protection Protocols," which returned about 70,000 asylum-seekers to Mexico from January 2019 until it was halted on President Joe Biden's first day in office two years later.
The announcement appeared to be a foregone conclusion after Biden promised as a candidate to end the policy, known informally as "Remain in Mexico," but he left a window open by ordering a review before shutting it down permanently.
Mayorkas said keeping the policy intact or modifying it "would not be consistent with this Administration's vision and values and would be a poor use of the Department's resources." He said the costs would far outweigh any benefits.
The policy coincided with a sharp decline of asylum-seekers at the border, but critics noted that people were hampered by violent conditions in Mexico, lack of access to lawyers and difficulty making it to court. Mayorkas acknowledged those concerns by noting the high rate of denied claims for failing to appear in court and the lack of housing, income and safety in Mexico.
Since Feb. 19, about 11,200 people with active cases have been allowed to return to the United States to wait for a ruling, a process that can take years in the backlogged court system. The administration has yet to say if tens of thousands more whose cases were either dismissed or denied will get another chance.
The top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee lambasted the move as "a very serious mistake" that would hinder efforts to curb the numbers of migrants entering the U.S. The remarks by Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., underscored the GOP view that the situation at the border remains a political liability for Democrats.
"The common thread across President Biden's continued actions is unwinding commonsense border security policies while putting our homeland security on the back burner," Katko said in a written statement.
The administration has largely kept in place pandemic-related powers introduced by then-President Donald Trump in March 2020 to expel people to Mexico without an opportunity to seek asylum, justified on grounds of protecting public health. Mayorkas acknowledged planning for those pandemic-related powers to be lifted but was light on specifics.
Mayorkas pointed to a new docket in immigration court announced Friday that aims to decide asylum cases at the border within 300 days. He promised "additional anticipated regulatory and policy changes," without elaborating.
Additionally, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday ordered state child-care regulators to revoke licenses from facilities that house minors who crossed the state's southern border without papers and were detained.
Currently, 52 state-licensed general residential operations and child placing agencies in Texas have contracts with the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement to care for undocumented migrant children. The Office of Refugee Resettlement contracts with about 200 facilities in 22 states.
Abbott's move apparently would force them to stop serving unaccompanied minors, because the facilities must have state licenses to qualify for the federal contracts.
Denying the Biden administration use of the state-licensed shelters could force more of the children to be held at U.S. Customs and Border Protection stations -- facilities deemed unsuitable for children.
In his executive order, though, Abbott linked recent increases in immigration to the state's ongoing capacity crisis in foster care.
"The unabated influx of individuals resulting from federal government policies threatens to negatively impact state-licensed residential facilities, including those that serve Texas children in foster care," the Republican governor said in the order.
Former federal child-welfare official Mark Greenberg said Abbott's move is likely to shrink already-tight capacity in the nation's makeshift system for caring for the migrant children.
"This would be a major setback," said Greenberg, who was a top official of the Administration for Children and Families, which includes the resettlement agency, during former President Barack Obama's administration.
"It would be enormously disruptive to the providers who have been providing shelter and services to unaccompanied children in Texas for many years, and have substantial expertise and experience from providing those services."
Information for this article was contributed by Robert T. Garrett, Dianne Solis and Gromer Jeffers Jr. of The Dallas Morning News (TNS); and by staff members of The Associated Press.