Date: Aug 25, 2021
August 25, 2021
Contact: Lauri Alvarez, Program Associate
LAWG Deeply Disappointed by SCOTUS Decision, Urges Biden Administration to End Remain in Mexico
Washington D.C.—The Latin America Working Group expresses deep disappointment to yesterday’s Supreme Court (SCOTUS) decision denying the Biden Administration request for a stay in the Biden v. Texas case on the “Remain in Mexico” policy, allowing a lower court decision to stand. This SCOTUS decision means that for now the lower court’s decision to revive the Remain in Mexico policy along the border stands. President Biden had suspended the Remain in Mexico policy on his first day in office and formally ended the policy in June 2021. In the last few months, over 10,000 asylum seekers who had been sent to danger in Mexico to await their immigration proceedings under this policy had been processed to pursue their claim from within the United States as a part of the Biden Administration’s efforts to rescind the policy. Since its implementation in 2019 under the Trump Administration, Remain in Mexico has caused over 60,000 asylum seekers to be returned to Mexico to await their immigration proceedings in danger, exposing them to grave human rights violations and denying them their right to seek protection in sham court proceedings.
“The Biden Administration was right to end the Remain in Mexico policy when it did. While we are deeply disappointed in this SCOTUS decision to intervene in a lower court’s decision, we will keep working to end this policy once and for all. We urge President Biden to do everything in his power to stand by his commitment to uphold access to asylum at the border and welcome those arriving with a fair and humane process. This means quickly finding a way to permanently end the Remain in Mexico policy. Too many people have already suffered and been wrongfully returned to danger under the Trump Administration’s anti-asylum policies. To reinstate Remain in Mexico would be to cause suffering and harm to countless vulnerable children, women, and men who have fled danger,” states LAWG co-director, Daniella Burgi-Palomino.
###
