On the campaign trail in 2020, President Joe Biden promised to end the Remain in Mexico program on his first day in office.
Thousands of migrants a day are turned away from the US under the Trump-era program, which requires asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for the duration of their immigration court cases.
After a brief suspension in the first half of 2021, legal battles resulted in the program being reinstated in December of 2021. The battle over the policy has made it to the Supreme Court, where justices heard oral arguments this week over the administration's efforts to end the program once and for all.
Immigration experts say the measure creates dangerous and sometimes deadly conditions for asylum-seekers.
Immigration advocates spent the first 14 months of Biden's presidency urging the administration to end Title 42, a policy used to quickly turn away asylum-seekers under the guise of a public health emergency.
The end date for the administration was announced on April 1 by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
The proposal has been met with resistance from all sides of the political spectrum.
A bipartisan group of senators introduced a new bill earlier this month that would block the administration from scrapping Title 42 without a specific plan in place to deal with massive numbers of migrants expected at the border. A judge appointed by the president temporarily blocked the administration from lifting the order.
Reports suggest the administration is considering delaying the repeal to avoid an influx at the border.
A temporary restraining order on the repeal would restrict the agency's efforts to adequately prepare for Title 42's eventual expiration, according to a Department of Homeland Security spokesman.
The removal of people who seek to cross the border without a lawful basis will be vastly expanded once the policy is lifted. The states suing to stop the repeal would halt DHS preparations for aggressive application of immigration law come May 23, according to the spokesman.
Even if the policy is eventually withdrawn come May, the move will be too little, too late for many immigration experts.
The decision to exempt Ukrainian refugees from Title 42 during the Russian invasion has angered immigration advocates who are fighting for the asylum of scores of Central and South Americans who have been waiting for years.
Immigration experts say that Biden hasn't fulfilled his promise toassert America's commitment to asylum seekers and refugees.
The president promised a more humane asylum system, but it has not happened, according to Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants Rights Project.
Insider spoke to seven immigration experts and asked them to give the administration a report card grade on its handling of the issue so far. At the time, the assessments of the Biden administration's approach to immigration were varied. Three sources gave failing grades, but others gave B's for the president.
Insider spoke to those experts and others, and found that their initial grade diversity had disappeared completely, and that almost all of the sources they spoke to branded Biden with the same mark.
A grade of F.
Why?
Rios gave the administration a D last year due to the continuation of Title 42. In the months since, his assessment dropped, with Rios now saying the administration's immigration approach is terrible.
Rios told Insider that his failing grade this time around is due to the president's lack of commitment to asylum procedures.
Rios said that Biden and his administration were responsible for the deaths of people who might have sought shelter in another era.
Secretary Mayorkas agrees that MPP hasemic flaws, which imposed unjustifiable human costs, and pulled resources and personnel away from other priorities while failing to address the root causes of irregular migration. The agency is following the protocol in good faith.
DHS is hopeful that the Supreme Court will overturn the lower courts rulings and allow Secretary Mayorkas to implement his policy decision to end MPP.
The administration should do better.
Rios wants the US to commit to their obligations under federal law and international agreements to uphold asylum procedures.
He urged the administration to end harmful policies that don't allow migrants who are fleeing harm to present themselves in the US in a safe manner, and he also noted a need for more extensive resources directed toward welcoming migrants in supportive ways.
Rios said in an April follow-up that the treatment of Ukrainian asylum seekers is different from migrants from other countries. It shows that the Biden administration could be doing more.
Grades: N/A
Why?
Gelernt did not give the administration a grade when he spoke to Insider. The lawyer characterized the administration's approach to immigration as mixed, compared to last summer when he said the Biden administration had done well.
The decision to keep the border closed to asylum-seeking families for so long resulted in horrible abuse, according to Gelernt.
There is virtually no support for the Title 42 policy among the public health community, and the administration knows that, so I think the conclusion is inescapable.
The policy was first implemented by Trump at the start of the COVID-19 epidemic and was meant to stop the spread of the coronaviruses at the border. Throughout its nearly two year existence, public health officials and scientists have slammed the policy time and time again, arguing that it does little to mitigate risk and is being used as a pretense to keep migrants out.
The first year on immigration can be summed up by how politics have allowed critical decisions about family separation and asylum to be made.
The conclusion is inescapable that politics is playing an outsized role here.
Gelernt told Insider that the administration's handling of family separation was a place for improvement and that the American Civil Liberties Union was extremely disappointed. The Biden administration was forced to defend a policy that the president once called "criminal" after the administration decided to do so.
The administration should do better.
Gelernt said it was too early to tell what the outcome of the negotiations with the Biden administration would be.
We hope the administration will do everything they can to make sure those families are never separated again or deported back to danger, he said.
Gelernt urged the administration to end Title 42 and restore asylum privileges in the US.
After World War II, we made a solid commitment never to send people back to danger, and we have had a working asylum system since then.
A grade of F.
Why?
Gaubeca gave the administration's immigration efforts a B- last summer, praising Biden's intent to create a humanitarian, efficient process, while acknowledging the challenges of successfully implementing such changes.
Gaubeca has given up on her optimism and is frustrated with several policy decisions, including the continuation and expansion of Title 42 and MPP, as well as the ongoing border wall construction.
Both sides are capitulating to the fear mongering of the extreme right. We are failing miserably at it.
The Department of Homeland Security is a monster and has too much of a law, according to Gaubeca.
She told Insider that they forgot human rights and asylum law responsibilities.
The administration should do better.
Gaubeca said the administration is missing a key tenet in its approach to handling immigration.
She suggested the president could take inspiration from the bravery displayed by asylum-seekers at the border who have gone through hell to flee violence or return to their families.
Gaubeca believed that if the president fails to fulfill his campaign promises, he will lose voter support.
She said that if he continues acting the way he is, she doesn't think he's going to be around.
Gaubeca believes that Biden is an improvement over his predecessor, but that's not enough.
She said that people are suffering while we argue politics and rhetoric back and forth.
A grade of F.
Why?
For the first time in January, Webb spoke with Insider, and he joined other experts in slamming the administration's lack of asylum measures and the danger they pose to migrants.
The situation at the border has worsened even though Trump has left. According to Human Rights First, there have been thousands of kidnappings, rapes, and assaults since Title 42 was enacted.
She criticized Biden for what she sees as the administration's political calculation over the importance of immigrant rights ahead of the upcoming elections.
The conservatives are going to say that Biden is pushing for open borders regardless of what the Biden administration does.
The president's unfulfilled promises are disappointing, but they are not the true tragedy.
She said that the failure to keep a campaign promise is one thing.
The human rights crisis at the border is being thrown around as a political issue.
The administration should do better.
The solutions are simple. She urged the administration to reopen the border, remove Title 42 and funnel resources into receiving migrants in a humanitarian way.
Thousands of people are being forced into incredibly dangerous circumstances with no regard whatsoever if they live or die.
We put asylum seekers through a maze of obstacles.
She stressed the need for broader fixes to the immigration system, which she said has become a complicated mess after years of rotating presidential administrations making minor adjustments to address their own specific priorities.
Grades: N/A
Why?
Bob Carey, the former director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, told Insider that he didn't feel comfortable giving the administration a grade. He gave the administration a B/B+ last summer.
Carey told Insider that it was not the way many advocates would have hoped.
The White House was shortsighted to encourage thousands of Afghan refugees to apply for humanitarian parole with no plan after the Autumn evacuate, instead of bolstering the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) or the US Refugee Admissions Program.
What is still unaddressed is what happens to Afghans who have fled the country or are in the country, whose lives are still at risk, or who lack some kind of permanent solution or semi-permanent solution.
The Afghan Adjustment Act would allow Afghan refugees to apply for permanent status after a year.
Carey said that he hoped for more and that there could have been other solutions that would not have continued the policies of the Trump Administration.
The administration should do better.
Carey said that the Biden administration can improve on messaging so that their policies and statements are in line with each other.
He said that the administration should end the Title 42 policy and restructure the US asylum system so that the refugee cap can be met in the following fiscal year.
A grade of F.
Why?
Roberto Lopez, an organizer with the TX Civil Rights Project, told Insider that the Biden administration's response to the immigration crisis caused by the Trump administration has been horrendous.
In December, the Biden administration was ordered to revest 6.6 acres of land to the Cavazos family, whose land was seized by the federal government for the border wall.
The administration is still defending other similar lawsuits, but Lopez told Insider that the Cavazos case is unique.
The Title 42 policy and the Remain in Mexico policy were criticized by Lopez and his organization.
They are shooting themselves in the foot because the apprehension numbers might double. Someone who crossed once is put into Mexico. They decide to try again because they are in harsher conditions.
The National Butterfly Center in the Rio Grande Valley was forced to close indefinitely due to the increased presence of anti- immigrants militias and protesters along the border and more investment into border patrol and police.
The administration should do better.
I think everyone needs to get on board with building migrant resource centers all across the country, and beefing up our ports of entry, and doing the same thing at the bridges as well.
He said that the Biden administration should not increase the budget of the border patrol.
Lopez said that ending Title 42 is where the Biden administration should start.
Fourteen million people from across the world applied to come to the U.S., but there is no real legal pathway to come in.
A grade of F.
Why?
The Biden administration has failed to fulfill international immigration promises, according to an immigration lawyer.
Morrison pointed out that the Bureau of Consular Affairs implemented the Muslim ban and the labor ban, which stifled legal immigration.
Ramotowski defended the ban in front of Congress.
The law firm of Morrison has sued the Biden administration multiple times for its handling of diversity visas.
The Biden administration was sued by Morrison's firm for stalling on processing visas and allowing an annual stockpile to expire.
The Biden administration was ordered by a DC judge to save 7,395 diversity visas that were set to expire.
The State Department is being sued by Morrison's firm for not allowing immigrants in unstable countries to move their visa interview locations.
He said that the State Department has taken steps to facilitate interviews for Iraqis, but so far no visas have been granted.
The administration should do better.
Immigration is a diplomatic tool. Morrison said that it is being used against them because they are starting to look like a scam.
He said that Biden and the State Department must give up the authority they found under Trump.
He gave them a new tool and they were all excited about it, and they don't want Morrison to give it up.
Morrison agreed that the Biden administration needed to honor international asylum commitments as well as their own stated goals if they were to end Title 42.
A grade of F.
Why?
In the summer of 2015, Oliver Merino said that the Biden administration was failing. The Biden administration was considering an immigration component in its funding package.
A lot of air was sucked out of the atmosphere when immigration measures were struck from the Biden administration's package.
After a year, Merino said there is more effort to put a magnifying glass on what the administration is doing and not doing.
There was a promise of closing the immigration centers. In December of 2021, Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said that the administration would close two ICE detention facilities in Texas and Louisiana, leaving dozens still in operation.
More people are in jail now than when he took office. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, by the end of 2021, the Biden administration had detained 50% more immigrants than the prior administration.
The administration should do better.
Merino told Insider that what they fail to do also says a lot about what their priorities are.
The deportation flights for Haitians, Venezuelans, and other immigrants need to stop.
Title 42 and the Remain in Mexico policies should be withdrawn immediately, according to Merino.
He said that the Biden administration should honor its commitment to close all immigration detention centers and allow those who have been held to have fair immigration hearings.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
