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September 7, 2021
On Aug. 24, the Supreme Court denied President Biden’s bid to rescind the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocol. The immigration policy, implemented by former President Donald Trump, forced thousands of asylum-seekers to stay in Mexico while their court cases are being processed.
Yahoo News spoke with a humanitarian nonprofit organization in Mexicali, Baja California, on how the latest decision could impact asylum-seekers and their immigration cases.
Video Transcript
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CARMEN VALENCIA: Last week, the Supreme Court denied President Joe Biden’s bid to rescind the Remain in Mexico policy, formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocol. The immigration policy, which was implemented by former President Donald Trump, forces thousands of asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while the court cases are being processed. The high court’s decision said the Biden administration likely violated federal law by trying to end the Trump-era program implemented in January of 2019. The ruling has raised many questions, ranging from whether a legal challenge would prevail to the practical effects of reinstatement if it stands.
Immigrant rights attorney Monika Langarcia with the American Civil Liberties Union in San Diego says this program has violated the due process rights of people to have a fair shot at seeking protection in the United States, while forcing some of the most vulnerable people in the world into being victims of exploitation and unsafe border cities.
MONIKA LANGARCIA: In those Mexican border cities, people are faced with the same, similar, sometimes worse conditions than those they fled in their home countries. There have been over 1,500 documented– and those are just the documented ones– instances of kidnappings, of rapes, of murder, of torture, of extortion, of assault. And those are just the documented ones.
CARMEN VALENCIA: Meanwhile, humanitarian organizations on the Mexican side have stepped up to help families in need with legal services and much more. Border Kindness is located in Mexicali, Baja, California, a Mexican border city that neighbors next to El Centro, California. For over two years, the organization has helped these asylum seekers in various ways, including transporting families to San Diego, an almost two-hour drive by bus, for their court hearings.
KELLY OVERTON: We’ve also provided food. We built a full-service medical care clinic to make certain asylum seekers and other vulnerable people in Mexico they have access to free, safe, dignified health care. We have worked at different times, when we could locate shelters that were doing good work and not exploiting people, to make certain people have shelters. So for many families that went through the MPP process, the initial process, we were their lifeline to be able to stay in Mexicali and go through that long process.
CARMEN VALENCIA: Out of the 7,000 people Border Kindness has helped, Kelly said about 2/3 of those went back home to their country. This, he says, it was former President Donald Trump’s plan with implementing the policy, to discourage them from coming to the US.
KELLY OVERTON: And then the asylum process of MPP is designed to make people wait. They would be given a court date. In our case, if they’re in Mexicali, they’d have to go to Tijuana, then cross to San Diego. And their first court date, it might simply be, hello, this is your name. Are you seeking asylum? Do you want a lawyer? They might say yes. And then they would get another court date six weeks, eight weeks or such later. And this process would continue to where they might be called to court four or five six times over the course of a year or longer.
CARMEN VALENCIA: Since President Biden took office, nearly 500 asylum seekers’ asylum claims have been processed in Mexicali. Hundreds of those families are now in the country beginning their new lives. Many of the children under MPP are now starting their first week of school. Kelly says the organization’s work has shifted.
KELLY OVERTON: We became very close to these families as they stayed through the years, providing them with all the things we talked about before and more. I mean, we’ve had– we’ve had people have babies. We’ve had people die. We’ve had children that we’ve seen since they were four years old turn six or seven years old.
CARMEN VALENCIA: As of now, the case is still under appeal. The Biden administration says it will comply in good faith with the order while continuing to challenge it in court, a process that can take months.