Federal judge reminds Biden to enforce the law
A judge thoroughly schooled the Department of Homeland Security on its duties under federal law.
The Washington Examiner's Jeremy Beaman reported that Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ordered officials to "enforce and implement" the Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocol in “good faith until such time as it has been lawfully rescinded in compliance with the [Administrative Procedures Act] and until such a time as the federal government has sufficient detention capacity to detain all aliens subject to mandatory detention.”
While Kacsmaryk cannot force DHS to reimplement the MPP, he did detail DHS’s mandatory obligation to detain all migrants “who unlawfully enter the United States between ports of entry if they are placed in expedited removal proceedings” under the Immigration and Nationality Act.
In theory, DHS could legally detain every illegal migrant. However, Kacsmaryk noted that when this is practically impossible to do, “the statute implicitly demands, or, at the very least, directs DHS use its authority to return certain aliens to Mexico.”
As Center for Immigration Studies resident fellow Andrew R. Arthur wrote on Tuesday, the Biden administration has three choices when faced with illegal migrants, “It can expel or remove them; it can detain them as the law requires; or it can send them to Mexico to await their removal hearings.”
Even though it does not force a reimplementation of MPP, Judge Kacsmaryk’s order could not have come at a better time. The Washington Examiner’s Anna Giaritelli reported that nearly 213,000 people were encountered by officials at the southern border, the most in 21 years.
And as of early this week, more than 18,500 unaccompanied minors are in federal custody waiting to be released.
Leaving the MPP in place, at least temporarily, would give officials the option to use it. And implementing the policy would alleviate the problems caused by the latest border surge. The Trump administration instituted the "remain in Mexico” policy. And as a result, encounters of accompanied and unaccompanied minors decreased significantly, as well as encounters of family units.
But, as Conn Carroll explained last week, President Joe Biden ended MPP on Day One of his presidency. Instead of rescinding this Trump-era border policy, Biden should humbly admit his failure at the border and reimplement the Migrant Protection Protocol.
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