On the 2020 campaign trail, President Joe Biden repeatedly demonized then-President Donald Trump for his treatment of immigrants. Now that he is in office, Biden is realizing that securing the border is a lot harder than he predicted.
On Thursday, the Biden administration told courts it was planning to reinstate Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, The Hill reported.
The policy, formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, required asylum-seekers to stay in Mexico while awaiting their case determinations instead of living in the United States.
It is the exact same policy Biden called “inhumane” and “dangerous” just a year and a half ago.
Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy is dangerous, inhumane, and goes against everything we stand for as a nation of immigrants. My administration will end it. https://t.co/toYzMaPP1Y
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) March 12, 2020
According to CNN, Biden initially kept his campaign promise and officially ended the policy on June 1 of this year.
Now, as record numbers of illegal immigrants flood the U.S. border, the Biden administration has been reduced to begging Mexico for the policy’s reinstatement.
In April, the states of Missouri and Texas sued the Department of Homeland Security for suspending the policy. They won the suit at the district court level, as wells as appeals to both the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, Fox News reported.
If Mexico agrees to terms, the DHS must take action to reimplement the policy. But thanks to the Biden administration, that is a big “if.”
After the president ended the policy, Mexico apparently decided they were not so fond of it either.
DHS filings from Thursday said, “Mexico has made clear that it has concerns about aspects of how MPP was previously implemented, and that without certain improvements to the program, it will not decide to accept MPP enrollees.”
Since the individuals would be sent to their country, Mexico has a good bit of leverage in negotiations about the policy.
According to the filings, Mexico’s proposed changes to the policy include the U.S. promising to rule on all asylum cases in six months, as well as increased protections against sending “particularly vulnerable populations” to Mexico.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt accused the DHS of dragging out the process in a statement obtained by Fox News.
“In April, we sued the Biden Administration over their cancellation of the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy and won at the district court, 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, and at the United States Supreme Court, requiring the Biden Administration to reimplement the policy,” he said.
“Despite multiple courts ordering the Biden Administration to reimplement the policy, they have repeatedly slow-walked that reimplementation. The ‘Remain in Mexico’ Policy should be implemented today, especially as the crisis at the border continues to worsen every single day. We have taken concrete action to secure the border, it’s time for the Biden Administration to do the same.”
The recent developments in this case further outline just how incompetent the Biden administration is. After talking a big game about ending MPP, Biden is now being forced not only to reinstate the policy, but also to do so on Mexico’s terms.
The Biden administration has been a complete disaster through the first nine months, and other countries are starting to take notice. If the same trend continues, America could lose its strong image on the world stage.