US reactivates "Stay in Mexico" plan

The program forces asylum seekers in the US to wait for a response to their application in Mexico

This Thursday the United States government confirmed that it will reactivate the controversial border plan "Stay in Mexico", promoted by former President Donald Trump, and that the current president, Joe Biden had promised to change for a more humanitarian one.

The aforementioned plan, officially known as Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP, for its acronym in English), basically obliges people seeking asylum in the United States to settle in Mexico until the immigration authorities approve their application.

The reactions have not been long in coming, as those who defend asylum seekers, repudiated the reactivation of the plan and demanded that President Biden put an end to it immediately, as this could expose migrants to unnecessary risks, especially crime and violence, in the so-called border camps.

Although the implementation measure was announced this Thursday, since mid-October, criticisms and calls have been made to the US authorities, since by that time, the White House had indicated that it would comply with a judicial order, which requires the government to reinstatement of Trump's border program.

Pro-immigrant groups have stressed that Washington has been able to do more to get rid of the court order, and eliminate the Stay in Mexico program at once.

They have argued that it is time for Biden to stop hiding behind the court order to justify the restart of the plan, thus claiming that this is simply a failure of the new White House Administration.

The measure, in addition to being inhumane, thus cataloged by critics, has been questioned from the beginning, when Donald Trump announced it, because he delegated his responsibilities to other countries, in this case to Mexico.

Similarly, activists supporting asylum seekers say Mexico has become an accomplice of the US government by allowing Biden to reactivate the program.

The judicial measure that forces Biden to reactivate the plan

At the end of 2019, the then President of the United States, Donald Trump, initiated this policy to curb migration, and the law that establishes that asylum seekers would wait within the territory for the resolution of their case was ignored.

By then, the "Stay in Mexico" program returned some 60,000 migrants to the Aztec country. Currently, a large part of them are still in Mexico awaiting the response to their asylum application.

Then, with the arrival of Biden to power, the US Administration promised to change Trump's immigration policy, however, the states of Texas and Missouri sued the federal government to reactivate the plan.

For August of this year, the Supreme Court refused to block the decision of a lower court that requested that the program "Stay in Mexico" be reactivated, since in the judgment of the judge in the case, it did not consider the benefits that the program has, as the "deterrent effect for potential migrants."

Therefore, the magistrate ordered Biden to restore the program, until he finds a way to legally invalidate it.

Voices such as Senator Bob Menéndez, considered the highest-ranking Latino in the United States Congress, have pointed out that the measure is cruel and was intentionally designed to deter immigrants.

Therefore, Menéndez said in a statement that while he understands that the White House has resumed the plan to comply with the court order, he is concerned that an expansion of inhumane anti-immigrant policy is being monitored.

In this sense, he asserted that they have a moral obligation to do what is necessary to end the anti-immigrant policy promoted by Trump.

What does Mexico say?

Last week, the Mexican government was concerned about the reactivation of the plan, which is why it asked the United States for significant improvements, mainly in the humanitarian conditions of the people who will be waiting in its territory, as well as allowing access to lawyers, since in September 2019 only 1% of asylum seekers had managed to find lawyers.

The administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrados (AMLO), in the negotiations it has held with the United States government, also demanded that the processes be streamlined to allow waiting times for asylum seekers to be shortened, in addition to that Washington guarantee them medical care and vaccines against Covid-19.

In addition, he asked the Biden government that vulnerable people such as minors who are not accompanied by adults, pregnant women, the elderly and people with physical or mental illnesses be exempted from the "Stay in Mexico" program, as well as members of the LGBTQ + community and monolingual indigenous people.

It should be noted that the program, now reactivated by Biden, differs from that of Trump, is that it now offers vaccination to all migrant adults who are registered in the MPPs, which seems to indicate that they have listened to requests from Mexico.