A member of the Border Patrol's Search, Trauma, and Rescue Unit BORSTAR observes the border wall in Sunland Park, New Mexico, July 15, 2021, U.S. Dec 2, Reuters - The Biden administration will restart a controversial Trump-era border program that forces asylum seekers to wait for U.S. immigration hearings, in keeping with a federal court order, a Mexican official told Reuters on Thursday.
The US will take measures to address Mexico's humanitarian concerns with the program, including offering vaccine to migrants and exempting more vulnerable people, the official said.
President Joe Biden, a Democrat, ended the policy called the Migrant Protection Protocols MP soon after his inauguration in January. But a federal judge ruled that Biden's rescission did not follow proper procedure and ordered its reinstatement in August. The U.S. government said it had to wait for Mexico's agreement before the policy could get up and running again.
At the same time, the Biden administration is still trying to get rid of the program, issuing a new rescission memo in hopes that it will resolve the court's legal concerns.
The policy was a cornerstone of former Republican President Donald Trump's hard line of immigration policies and sent tens of thousands of people who entered the U.S. land border back to Mexico to wait months - sometimes years - to present their cases at U.S. immigration hearings held in makeshift court rooms near the border.