U.S. to bring in more migrants forced to wait in Mexico under Trump program
"conix, U.S. Shows Progress in Moving Migrant Children From Border Jails"
Ted Hesson May 20, 2021 8:08 AM AEST
Pedro Luis Ruiz, migrant from Cuba under the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program, walks across the Paso del Norte international border bridge from the Mexican side to continue his asylum request in the United States, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico March 11, 2021. Picture taken March 11, 2021. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez/File Photo
The United States is working to reopen some cases of non-Mexican asylum seekers who were forced to wait in Mexico under the administration of former President Donald Trump, a top U.S. border official said on Wednesday.
The move would allow those migrants to enter the United States to pursue their claims for protection and represents the latest step by President Joe Biden to unwind a Trump-era program known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP).
Nearly 28,000 migrants were ordered deported due to a failure to appear in court since the MPP program began in 2019, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
BuzzFeed News reported the decision on Tuesday, citing internal government documents.
Some Republicans have blamed an increase in migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border in recent months in part on Biden's decision to end the MPP program.
Pro-immigrant advocates and Democrats praised the move, saying the Trump program denied migrants the ability to seek asylum in the United States.
U.S. border authorities are also preparing for the eventual end of a different Trump-era health policy that allows migrants to be rapidly expelled during the COVID-19 pandemic, Miller said.
Shortly after taking office, Biden exempted unaccompanied children from the policy, known as Title 42, but has continued to apply it to single adults and some families.