Advocates chant 'refugees are welcome here' as Supreme Court hears Remain in Mexico case
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Outside the Supreme Court building on Tuesday, pro-refugee advocates chanted “Si, se puede” (“Yes, we can”) and “Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here.” Inside, justices heard oral arguments around the previous administration’s inhumane Remain in Mexico policy, officially known as Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP).
The big question is not the legality of the program itself (though it is illegal), it’s whether the Biden administration has the power to end it. (Of course it does, but we are not the Supreme Court.) In light of an openly hostile 6-3 court, the odds do not seem good at all. But following Tuesday’s hearing, observers seemed to indicate that a ruling in favor of the administration could be possible. Maybe.
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“Questions from conservative and liberal justices during nearly two hours of arguments suggested that the court could free the administration to end the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy that forces some people seeking asylum in the U.S. to wait in Mexico for their hearings,” The Washington Post reported.
CNN reports that while right-wing justices asked “tough questions of the administration … Chief Justice John Roberts expressed sympathy for the government’s argument that it wants to end a program that had been put forward by the previous administration.” Vox, meanwhile, reported justices seemed “fed up with a Trump judge who sabotaged Biden.” That right-wing judge forced himself into foreign policy, because reinstating this policy has required cooperation from Mexico. “Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk is not secretary of homeland security, even though he might think he is,” Vox said.
Of course, how justices vote is a whole different matter, and this is a right-wing court that has had no qualms about using the secretive “shadow docket” to issue momentous decisions, as Daily Kos’ Joan McCarter has previously noted. So we’ll see what really happens in late June when the court is expected to issue a decision on this case.
In the meantime, we know that Remain in Mexico continues to inflict harm on vulnerable people, because that was the entire point of the program when it was instituted by the previous administration. It’s been more than two years since a government attorney representing that administration admitted in court that everyone enrolled in Remain in Mexico could be at risk of being kidnapped by a cartel. President Biden’s Department of Homeland Security acknowledged these dangers in the October 2021 memo that again attempted to terminate the policy following Kacsmaryk’s ruling.
There’s also the possibility that Remain in Mexico remains a danger to asylum-seekers even if the Biden administration wins. Both Vox and Immigration Impact said Brett Kavanaugh was among justices who suggested the case could go back to Kacsmaryk.
“Despite the October memo not being before the court, Justice Kavanaugh expressed significant skepticism that the Biden administration had explained itself enough in its 39-page memo terminating the program,” Immigration Impact said. “Unfortunately, that suggests that even a victory for the Biden administration in this case may not be enough in the long run to end MPP.”
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