The Biden administration has officially ended a policy that forced asylum seekers to pursue their cases in Mexico.
The previous White House’s Migrant Protection Protocols program, which became known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, took effect in 2019. Advocates sharply criticized MPP, in part, because it made LGBTQ asylum seekers who were forced to live in Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, Matamoros and other Mexican border cities even more vulnerable to violence and persecution based on their gender identity and sexual orientation.
The White House in January suspended enrollment in MPP shortly after President Biden took office.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday in a memo he sent to acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Troy Miller, acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tae Johnson and acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Tracy Renaud that announced the end of the Trump-era policy said roughly 11,200 asylum seekers with MPP cases have been allowed into the U.S. between Feb. 19 and May 25. Estuardo Cifuentes, a gay man from Guatemala who ran Rainbow Bridge Asylum Seekers, a program for LGBTQ asylum seekers and migrants in Matamoros that the Resource Center Matamoros, a group that provides assistance to asylum seekers and migrants in the Mexican border city, helped create, is among them.
“MPP does not adequately or sustainably enhance border management in such a way as to justify the program’s extensive operational burdens and other shortfalls,” wrote Mayorkas in his memo.
“In deciding whether to maintain, modify, or terminate MPP, I have reflected on my own deeply held belief, which is shared throughout this administration, that the United States is both a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants, committed to increasing access to justice and offering protection to people fleeing persecution and torture through an asylum system that reaches decisions in a fair and timely manner,” he added. “To that end, the department is currently considering ways to implement long-needed reforms to our asylum system that are designed to shorten the amount of time it takes for migrants, including those seeking asylum, to have their cases adjudicated, while still ensuring adequate procedural safeguards and increasing access to counsel.”
Steve Roth, executive director of the Organization of Refuge, Asylum and Migration, a Minnesota-based organization that works with LGBTQ refugees and migrants around the world, welcomed the end of MPP.
“We’re very happy to see, at long last, the termination of the dangerous and illegal ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy that was put in place by the Trump administration in early 2019,” Roth told the Washington Blade in a statement. “This policy forced asylum seekers at our Southern border — including many LGBTIQ individuals — to spend months and sometimes years in dangerous Mexican border towns while they waited for their asylum cases to be processed.”
Roth added MPP “was not in keeping with the United States’ commitments to international asylum law and it was not reflective of who we are as a country.”
“We’re grateful to President Biden and his administration for overturning this policy and for their commitment to a just and humane immigration and asylum system,” he said.
Immigration Equality Legal Director Bridget Crawford echoed Roth.
“President Trump created a humanitarian disaster with this policy that has resulted in well over a thousand asylum seekers being assaulted, raped, kidnapped or murdered while awaiting their asylum hearing, including LGBTQ and HIV-positive people,” Crawford told the Blade in a statement.
Ending MPP is the latest in a series of steps the Biden administration has taken to reverse the previous White House’s hardline immigration policies.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price told the Blade last month that protecting migrants and asylum seekers who are fleeing persecution based on their gender identity and sexual orientation is one of the administration’s global LGBTQ rights priorities.
Vice President Kamala Harris is among the administration officials who have publicly acknowledged that anti-LGBTQ violence is a “root cause” of migration from Central America. Texas Congresswoman Veronica Escobar, whose district includes the border city of El Paso, and others have noted to the Blade that Title 42, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rule that closed the Southern border to most asylum seekers and migrants because of the coronavirus pandemic, remains in place.
Congress has yet to consider a comprehensive immigration reform bill that Democrats introduced in February. Crawford in her statement also notes Mayorkas’ memo “does not address the many thousands of individuals who were wrongfully denied relief under the MPP program.”
“These people no longer have ‘active’ cases, so they are not being processed by the administration, but many are living in Mexico or have been returned back to their countries where they face persecution. Quite literally, some of these people have been handed a death sentence,” said Crawford. “The Biden administration has not addressed these cases yet and whether people wrongfully denied relief under the MPP program will have an opportunity to renew their claims.”
