Press Release

Washington — Last night the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a lower court decision ordering the Biden administration to reinstate the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), a cruel and illegal Trump administration policy. Under MPP people seeking asylum were forcibly returned to Mexico to await their U.S. court dates in dangerous border cities. The policy was a humanitarian and due process disaster that exposed families, children, and adults to grave violence. The Biden administration suspended MPP on its first day in office, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas formally terminated the program in June. At this pivotal moment, the #WelcomeWithDignity campaign urges the Biden administration to uphold its promises and do everything in its power to fight for a permanent end to MPP.

“The Supreme Court’s decision is profoundly disappointing and heartbreaking. From its inception, MPP was and is an illegal policy that cruelly and needlessly placed people seeking protection directly in harm’s way. Its illegality was rightfully challenged in the courts, and the Biden administration was right to suspend MPP on its first day in office and to formally end the policy earlier this year,” said Ursela Ojeda, policy advisor with the Migrant Rights and Justice Program at the Women’s Refugee Commission. “Last night’s decision puts asylum-seeking families and children at immediate risk of needless cruelty and harm, including detention, family separation, and prolonged forced stays in Mexican border towns that expose migrants to cartels and other dangers.  We call on the Biden administration to immediately take all necessary steps to fully terminate MPP, and to do everything in its power to mitigate its harm, just as we call on the Mexican government to reject a resumption of MPP.”

“Today’s Supreme Court ruling cannot be squared with the controlling law or the facts on the ground,” said Karen Musalo, Director of the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS). “When CGRS and our partners brought legal challenges against MPP, at every step the federal courts found the policy to be in blatant violation of our domestic and international legal obligations to people fleeing persecution. The lower court rulings in this case were rife with legal and factual errors, as we detailed in a brief filed at the high court earlier this week. The Biden administration was right to end MPP and it must do all that it can to discontinue a policy that has put asylum seekers in grave danger and made a mockery of our commitments to refugees.”

“The reinstatement of Migration Protection Protocols (MPP) is extremely disappointing and goes against our values as a nation of refuge that respects due process.” said Basma Alawee, Campaign Manager, We Are All America. “MPP adds another layer of complication and cruelty for children, families, and other migrants seeking asylum and safety. MPP forces them to remain in Mexico, where they are at risk of sexual assault, kidnappings and homocide due to their vulnerable status in the country. We call on the Biden administration to urgently pursue all means of putting an end to ‘Remain in Mexico’ policies and to protect the rights of those seeking asylum at our borders.”

“This policy was created to inflict suffering and is counter to our country’s values by sending pregnant women, children, and babies to sleep on the streets in dangerous cities. Children and families were given no choice but to live in tent camps without access to clean water, medical care or schools. Many people waiting in Mexico for their asylum cases have been kidnapped, raped and even killed as a direct result of this policy. They came to our doorstep with a belief in America — and our government sent them into danger,” said Paola Luisi, executive director of Families Belong Together. “We cannot accept any policy—even temporary—that separates families. We urge the Biden administration to do everything within their means to put an end to this cruel ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy once and for all.”

“The Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as the “Remain in Mexico” program was always illegal and born from racial animus and colonial interests. The U.S. is violating the rights of Indigenous Peoples from north to south and complicit in causing the forced migration in the first place. What about protocols supporting our right to stay home in our ancestral lands where we have lived since time immemorial? ” said Carolina Martin Ramos, Legal Director of Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim. “We are forced to flee our ancestral homelands against our will and seek asylum only because occupying settler colonial states and the U.S. support and protect the transnational extractive industries and business interests that criminalize, torture, and kill our peoples when we assert our inherent rights and rights under international human rights laws including, the Declaration on the Righst of Indigenous Peoples (DRIP). The U.S. has been complicit in the politics and business of genocide in Maya Territories for decades and backed dictators and military regimes such as the Rios Montt government that was found to have committed the worst imaginable genocidal atrocities against Maya peoples and nations. Unfortunately, it is no surprise that the U.S. continues to violate and abrogate its legal obligations and duties under international human rights laws since the U.S. has broken every treaty signed with our relatives from northern Indigenous sovereign tribal nations. Still, we are dismayed that the U.S. Supreme Court would stop the Biden administration from any attempt to end the illegal and inhumane MPP. We call on the U.S. to end the cruel and inhumane MPP that traps us into a vacuum at the Mexican border where we are the most vulnerable to victimization by organized crime and Mexican police. If the U.S. doesn’t want to fulfill its duties under international laws and treaties and properly process asylum seekers then they should stop creating the situations that displace us from our ancestral lands and force us to flee in the first place.”

“The Supreme Court’s unconscionable decision to deny the stay in the MPP case puts thousands of lives of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in immediate danger,” said Camilo Perez-Bustillo, Leadership Team of Witness at the Border. “We stood vigil at the border crossing between Brownsville and Matamoros between January and March 2020 in defense of these migrants’ internationally recognized right to seek asylum, for 90 days when the MPP policy, one of the most blatant examples of the Trump administration’s cruel and illegal border and immigration policies, was at a fever pitch. The Biden Administration must act in defense of these migrants’ rights, as it has pledged to, and against the injustice that the Supreme Court has mandated. Mexican authorities must also do everything necessary to prevent the implementation of MPP, in compliance with Mexico’s own human rights obligations and laws. U.S. and Mexican authorities must collaborate to promote justice, on both sides of the border, not to undermine it.”

“The Biden administration was correct to rescind the Trump return to Mexico policy, the whole point of which was to punish people for seeking asylum by trapping them in miserable and dangerous conditions,” said Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. “The government must take all steps available to fully end this illegal program, including by re-terminating it with a fuller explanation. What it must not do is use this decision as cover for abandoning its commitment to restore a fair asylum system.”

“President Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy subjected thousands to unthinkable violence and deprived them of due process. This policy flies in the face of the values we aspire to as a nation, and we at the National Immigration Law Center are deeply disappointed that the Supreme Court failed to pause the lower court order,” said Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center. “We are committed to doing everything we can to prevent this egregious policy from harming one more person. We urge the Biden administration to vigorously pursue its appeal before the Fifth Circuit and do everything in its power to ensure this deadly program does not move forward.”

“We are deeply disappointed in the Supreme Court’s refusal to intervene in a lower court decision to revive the Migrant Protection Protocols,” said Joan Rosenhauer, Executive Director, Jesuit Refugee Service/USA. “MPP is a harmful policy established by President Trump that forced asylum seekers to return to Mexico to live in dangerous and uncertain circumstances, targeted by gangs and criminal activity. We urge the Biden Administration to continue to fight implementation of this policy to ensure that those fleeing violence and arriving at our borders receive the protection they deserve.”

“A compassionate and fair immigration policy should be rooted in welcoming asylum seekers, unaccompanied children, and immigrants. The Supreme Court’s order puts lives in jeopardy and threatens the lives of countless people who are at risk of unnecessary harm,” said Meredith Owen, Director of Policy and Advocacy at Church World Service. “Living out our moral leadership requires an immediate termination of all anti-asylum policies — not only the ‘Remain in Mexico’ (MPP) policy but also the immoral and unlawful ‘Title 42’ expulsions. We must envision a system that increases equity, particularly for Black asylum seekers and migrants, and upholds the dignity of all people.” 

“Many of our Jewish ancestors perished in the Holocaust because the doors to the United States were closed,” said Jewish Activists for Immigration Justice of Western MA. “Some got to our shores and were returned to Europe to be murdered by the Nazis. As a result of this atrocity, the U.S. and the world recognized and enshrined into law that those fleeing for their lives have the right to seek asylum. The Migrant Protection Protocols policy denies people who are fleeing for their lives the right to seek asylum, violating U.S. and international law. In 2020, our group visited the tent camp in Matamoros, Mexico and learned first-hand the devastating impact of the illegal and inhumane Migrant Protection Protocols on real people who have committed no crime and are just trying to survive. Every legal avenue must immediately be pursued to make sure that MPP is NEVER reinstated. NEVER AGAIN.”

“This ruling will be devastating for countless asylum seekers and their families, but it does not deter us in the least. While it is deeply disturbing to see a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court rubber stamp the lower court’s erroneous decision, we will continue to fight this illegal and unconscionable policy. The ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy forced thousands of people seeking protection into situations where they were subjected to sexual violence, kidnapping, disease, and murder,” said Melissa Crow, Senior Supervising Attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Immigrant Justice Project. “It is also a setback to the Biden administration’s promise to rebuild our asylum system but we will continue to fight for a fair and humane asylum process for all those who seek protection.”

“The Remain in Mexico policy was a sham of due process, put children and families in danger, and led to family separation,” said Miriam Abaya, Senior Director for Immigration and Children’s Rights at First Focus on Children. “The Biden administration was right to end it and begin a winddown process to give those in the program access to safety in the United States, as our laws require. To protect children’s safety and well-being, our nation must never again implement this policy or anything like it. The Biden administration must take all necessary steps to end the Remain in Mexico policy once and for all.”

“Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision is alarming and will undoubtedly result in asylum-seeking children and families being subject to more unnecessary violence and danger. Seeking asylum is not a crime – as a country, we must do better. MPP is a policy proven to be extremely detrimental to asylum-seeking families and children forced to wait in Mexico, putting them at risk of violence, limiting their access to due process protections, and gravely violating their human rights,” said Janti Soeripto, Save the Children President and CEO. “The reinstatement of MPP is a worrisome step backward in our fight for a more humane and just asylum system, and dangerously legitimizes anti-migrant sentiments. We call upon the Biden administration to act swiftly to find a solution that serves the best interests of asylum-seeking children and families. This nation must reclaim its moral standing and prevent children from becoming exposed to more violence and abuse.”

“The Remain in Mexico policy is a flagrant disregard for the lives of the already extremely vulnerable children, women, and men who are in dire need of aid at our southern border,” said Guerline Jozef, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance. “‘Migrant Persecution Protocols’ is a more accurate name, as it was created to inflict suffering by forcing people to stay in unsafe conditions. This decision will lead to further violence against, and exploitation of, some of the most vulnerable people in the world. We have spoken with people who themselves or their family members waiting in Mexico for their asylum cases have been attacked, kidnapped, raped, and even killed as a direct result of this policy.”

“The Biden administration’s legacy will be a continuation of the anti-immigrant policies we saw over the last four years unless they are fully committed to welcoming and protecting immigrants by ending MPP,” said Jonathan Goldman, Executive Director of the Student Clinic for Immigrant Justice. “Beyond the illegality of MPP, the cruelty of this policy has resulted in people being sexually assaulted, kidnapped, and killed. This pain and suffering is on the hands of the government. Anything less than a swift and forceful response to this decision will be a failure by the Biden administration.” 

“The ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy was a devastating blow to asylum seekers—including survivors of gender-based violence—who sought protection in the United States and were instead returned to violent conditions,” said Archi Pyati, CEO of the Tahirih Justice Center. “In failing to intervene to prevent the re-implementation of this inhumane policy, the Supreme Court has disregarded U.S. and international law, and abandoned our obligations to the global community. Asylum is essential to protect vulnerable survivors whose governments cannot or will not protect them from harm. As long as the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy continues, the U.S. is effectively slamming the door shut on thousands of people who are seeking a bridge to safety. The Biden Administration must end this unconscionable program once and for all.”

“‘Remain in Mexico’ is an assault on human rights and U.S. asylum law,” said Anna Gallagher, executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc., or CLINIC, “and both are already under attack due to the Biden administration’s decision to keep Title 42 in place. CLINIC and our affiliates, like so many across this country, stand ready to welcome. Our message to the Biden administration at this critical moment is clear: we will hold you to your promise to restore the soul of America. To do so, you must take immediate action to end Remain in Mexico.”

“To use the Supreme Court’s own words, its decision to require the continued implementation of Migration Protection Protocols (MPP) is arbitrary and capricious,” stated David Inoue, Executive Director, Japanese American Citizens League. “When implemented, MPP reversed longstanding immigration practices, also with little justification, endangering migrant families and children seeking asylum. The Supreme Court’s majority has chosen to reject the fundamental value of welcoming refugees as we seek to do so with thousands of our allies from Afghanistan in the support of policies steeped in the extreme racism and xenophobia of the previous administration.” 

“It is unconscionable that the Supreme Court would force the government to reinstate the illegal Remain in Mexico program,” said Carmen Maria Rey, U.S. Legal Director of the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP). “Not only does Remain in Mexico make a mockery of due process, it literally puts migrant lives in danger. IRAP calls on the Biden administration to immediately renew its efforts to terminate this policy and restore full access to the asylum system by revoking Title 42, another remnant of the xenophobic Trump era that continues to push migrants into harm’s way in Mexico. The Biden administration must use this moment to recommit to restoring a humane asylum system and not use the Supreme Court’s ill-advised decision to give cover to inhumane and illegal policies.”

“The Supreme Court decision to uphold a reinstatement of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) is deeply disappointing and will continue to force asylum seekers to languish in harmful and precarious circumstances across the border,” said Nili Sarit Yossinger, Executive Director of Refugee Congress. “We strongly urge the Biden administration to keep pushing back against any policy that impedes upon a person’s ability to legally seek asylum in the US.”

“Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision imposes even more suffering onto families who have come to the U.S. seeking safety and hope and instead must now stay in Mexico where they endure kidnapping, rape, and terrible violence,” said Tami Goodlette, Director of Litigation at the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES). “As RAICES has said many times: SEEKING REFUGE IN THE UNITED STATES IS A LEGAL ACT. There is nothing improper, immoral, or wrong about it. MPP violates U.S. and international law and the Biden Administration must move swiftly to fully rescind MPP or it will own MPP and all the violence that results.”

“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 not reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy at all costs. 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 unnecessary and unimaginable suffering and harm,” states LAWG co-director, Daniella Burgi-Palomino.

“The possible resurrection of the brutal Remain in Mexico policy after its supposed termination is about as dystopian as the policy’s Orwellian name: the Migrant Protection Protocols. The policy did not protect migrants under Trump, and it does not protect migrants under Biden,” said Tess Hellgren, Deputy Legal Director of Innovation Law Lab. “The reinstatement of Remain in Mexico would jeopardize the lives of thousands of individuals seeking safety for themselves and their families. It’s time to put an end to this racist, wanton cruelty once and for all.”

“We have been so encouraged by the humane processing of families during the wind-down of the previous MPP by the Biden administration. While many have been able to apply for asylum, many who have been waiting for so long remain in danger in Mexico. Any renewal of a new MPP system should continue the processing of those who have been waiting so long with the hope of a just hearing of their appeal for asylum, as well as those on the Huisha or HIAS lists,” said Terry Burton, chair of the Interfaith Welcome Coalition. “Our partner NGOs in Mexico have been actively assisting the families forced to remain in Mexico since this policy began, risking their own safety to help these vulnerable people in the midst of cartel gangs and corruption. The administration should continue to press for the end of MPP and ensure the safety of all those who continue to flee dangers in their home countries only to be forced to remain in danger by MPP.”

“The Supreme Court not only confirms a factually suspect lower court decision, but it also callously denies the reality on the border and the humanity of those seeking asylum. Forcing migrants to remain in dangerous Mexican border cities leaves them vulnerable to abuse and exploitation by cartels and outsources their care and support to resource strapped municipalities, NGOs, churches and ministries,” said Stephen Reeves, Executive Director of Fellowship Southwest. “MPP is a shameful departure from the best American tradition of welcoming the persecuted and last night’s order is deeply disappointing. Fellowship Southwest will continue to support those sacrificially serving the migrants and meeting their needs and urges the Biden administration to continue their effort to repeal the policy.” 

“It is truly disappointing to see the U.S. Supreme Court directing the Biden-Harris administration to continue to implement a program such as Remain in México, which has had such a clear intent to ignore the rights of people seeking humanitarian protection in the U.S.,” stated Oscar A Chacon, executive director of Alianza Americas. “In light of the vastly positive impact of people who have settled in the U.S. over the years, be them recipients of asylum, refugees, or migrants; we should be welcoming every one of them, instead of keeping in place programs designed to violate their rights. The Biden-Harris administration must do everything within its reach to put an end to this harmful program.”

“Since 2019, the International Mayan League has denounced MPP and heard directly from Indigenous asylum seekers in the U.S./Mexico Border,” said Juanita Cabrear Lopez (Mam) and Executive Director of the International Mayan League. “MPP is detrimental to all asylum seekers but Indigenous Peoples are particularly vulnerable as it places an already at risk group in extremely dangerous situations where they are targeted by human and sex traffickers, cartels, among other criminal factions simply because of their Indigenous identity. Indigneous peoples are disproportionately impacted by persecution, criminalization, and a history of genocide in their home countries. Many are fleeing and have the legal right to seek asylum.” 

“We should not forget the cruelty and chaos of the Trump years,” said Douglas Rivlin, Director of Communication for America’s Voice. “Remain in Mexico or MPP was about inflicting intentional harm in a failed act of deterrence in violation of U.S. law, international treaties, and American values. Remain in Mexico should not be resuscitated, reinstated, or reformed, it should be rescinded, reviled, and relegated to the dustbin of history. In light of the SCOTUS’s radical ruling to re-embrace cruelty and chaos, the Biden administration should find a way to end this policy in a manner that passes muster with the vague and twisted logic of the District Court’s ruling, while ensuring that we never again go back to the cruelty, chaos, and devastation that has already had such a demonstrated human toll.”

“While we are extremely disappointed in the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the lower court’s decision to reinstate the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP),” says Charlene D’Cruz, Director of Lawyers For Good Government’s Project Corazon, “Project Corazon will continue to support asylum seekers as they exercise their right to seek asylum. MPP is a harmful, xenophobic policy that has done nothing but create dangerous — and in many cases deadly — conditions in the southern border region. We urge President Biden to reject returning to a policy that separates families and subjects asylum seekers to horrific conditions, and instead put an end to MPP once and for all.”

“No iteration of ‘Remain in Mexico’ is compatible with the right to asylum or U.S. obligations under domestic and international law,” said Mary Meg McCarthy, Executive Director of the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC). “The Biden Administration must take every step possible to protect those seeking safety at our borders. The Supreme Court’s decision threatens to place thousands of migrants and asylum seekers in danger. Federal courts and civil society organizations, including NIJC, have documented the irreversible harm to people subjected to this unlawful policy. We call on the Biden administration to take all measures legally available to bring this horrific record to bear and achieve termination of this inhumane program.”

“Denying access to asylum in any form – whether under President Trump or President Biden and whether under Remain in Mexico or under Title 42 – is a national shame. We need a full restoration of asylum now, not later,” said Dylan Corbett, Executive Director of Hope Border Institute.

“The decision to reinstate the inhumane ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy will only compound the grave danger asylum-seekers are already facing,” said Xochitl Oseguera, Vice President of Mamás Con Poder. “Many of those at our border are children and mothers seeking asylum and unfairly denied under this policy and its continuance through Title 42. America’s moms want every asylum-seeker and every immigrant to be treated with compassion, dignity and respect.”

“HIAS is very disappointed that the Supreme Court denied a stay in the ‘Remain in Mexico’ case,” said Andrew Geibel, Policy Counsel at HIAS. “Through our work at the border, HIAS saw firsthand how the program created a humanitarian disaster on the U.S.-Mexico border, and we are dismayed that the Biden administration will be forced to restart the program. While HIAS will do everything in our power to help those affected by this decision, we also call on the Biden administration to use every tool at its disposal to end the program again. The administration must also comply with the decision in a way that best protects the rights of asylum seekers.”

“The Biden administration was right to end Remain in Mexico, a policy that deliberately subjected asylum seekers and migrants to inhumane conditions and deplorable levels of violence in Mexico. It was and remains a clear violation of our domestic laws and U.S. treaty obligations towards refugees,” said Eleanor Acer, senior director for refugee protection at Human Rights First. “Attempts to make MPP ‘better’ would be doomed to fail given the policy’s illegality and the pervasive violence against asylum seekers in Mexico, both by cartels with extensive territorial control and Mexican authorities who frequently collaborate with criminal groups to kidnap, attack, and extort asylum seekers. Whether through MPP, Title 42, or a revised version of the inherently flawed MPP, turning people seeking refuge back to danger is illegal and inhumane.”

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The #WelcomeWithDignity Campaign is composed of more than 85 organizations committed to transforming the way the United States receives and protects people forced to flee their homes to ensure they are treated humanely and fairly. To learn more and join our campaign visit: welcomewithdignity.org