Back to the Trump era. Since Monday, a program imposed by the former president has been reopened at the border between the United States and Mexico. Its name: “Migrant Protection Protocols” (MPP), better known as “Remain in Mexico”. It stipulates that non-Mexican migrants who have applied for asylum with the United States must wait in Mexico while their case is being investigated. The nationalist president had imposed this “subcontracting” on the Mexican power, hand and foot bound by its economic and commercial dependence on its powerful neighbor to the North. Joe Biden had, at first, put an end to this program, before a federal judge appointed by Donald Trump invalidated, in August, this decision that the Supreme Court had then supported, despite an appeal from the new administration.
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Officially, the latter remains opposed to this protocol but claims to comply with a court decision. In a statement, the Secretary for Internal Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, recalls that this program “Has endemic flaws, has imposed unjustifiable human costs, distracted resources and personnel from our priorities, and failed to address the roots of irregular immigration.” Curious wording: by definition, an asylum request does not fall under “irregular immigration”. And the object of the “Migrant Protection Protocols” was not to dry up the sources of migratory flows but to support their management in Mexico.
Under the Trump administration, 60,000 asylum seekers were sent back to the other side of the Rio Grande, where they often fell prey to gangs: kidnappings, extortion. After several months of negotiations, the two countries reached an agreement for this “Remain in Mexico” version 2. At the request of Mexico, Washington committed to facilitate access to the law for asylum seekers. They can therefore have recourse to lawyers and examine their cases within six months of their filing. Another point of the new agreement: access to vaccination for migrants.
While not obliged to do so by justice, the Biden administration will nevertheless continue to use another Trumpian weapon – Title 42 – which allows the American authorities to deport migrants on the sole basis of a suspicion of a public health problem. Forged during the Covid pandemic, this provision is mostly used arbitrarily to drive refugees and migrants from American territory.
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