Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt received a “huge victory” alongside Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Friday when a federal judge ordered the Biden Administration to reinstate President Trump’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program.
The MPP, also referred to as the “Remain-in-Mexico” policy, requires non-Mexican migrants seeking asylum to remain in Mexico while they await a court date in the United States.
President Biden put a temporary hold on Trump’s 2019 MPP program after taking office in January, and the program was later permanently suspended in June by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Schmitt and Paxton sued the Biden administration in April for the policy’s temporary suspension and argued that allowing migrants to await their court hearing in the U.S. only puts more obstacles in front of federal immigration agencies trying to do their job effectively.
U.S. District Judge of the Northern District of Texas Matthew Kacsmaryk said the Biden administration “failed to consider several critical factors” before suspending the program and ordered that it be reinstated. The Biden administration has until Friday – seven days after Kacsmaryk’s order – to file an appeal.
“Joe Biden cancelled President Trump’s successful Migrant Protection Protocols,” Schmitt, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, said. “This ruling is a huge victory in the fight to secure the border and the fight back against the scourge of human trafficking.”
Schmitt has been one of Biden’s most vocal critics on the unprecedented influx of migrants through the southern border, often referring to it as the “Biden border crisis”. The Missouri Attorney General has cited human and drug trafficking concerns that have bled into Missouri due to the mass illegal immigration and called the situation a “total disaster”.
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is currently facing calls for impeachment from multiple U.S. Congressmen over the border crisis and recent comments he’s made regarding the southern border. On a trip to Brownsville, Texas last week, Mayorkas met with Border Patrol agents privately and unbeknownst to him, one of the agents was recording his remarks.
“If our borders are the first line of defense, we’re going to lose, and this is unsustainable,” Mayorkas said on the audio recording first shared with Fox News’ Bill Melugin. “We can’t continue like this, our people in the field can’t continue and our system isn’t built for it.”
Kacsmaryk’s decision also requires the federal government to file monthly reports detailing the total monthly encounters at the border, total number of migrants detained and the total number of asylum applicants, among other things.
If the Biden administration does not file an appeal by Friday, the MPP program will be reinstated.
