Biden to reinstate Trump ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy: report

Some White House officials reportedly viewed the Supreme Court ruling last week upholding the Trump-era Remain in Mexico policy as a chance to slow the pace of President Biden’s immigration changes that they feared were sparking the crisis at the border. 

Many of them, according to the New York Times, had already been thinking about rebooting former President Donald Trump’s policy in a narrow way to stem the tide of migrants.

The officials saw the justices’ decision as a way to give Biden political cover to alter his predecessor’s immigration policy without angering Democrats who railed against those programs during the past four years.

Ditching the Remain in Mexico program was one of several Trump’s immigration programs that Biden reversed or rolled back in the early days of his administration — and that critics contend acted as a welcome invitation to migrants from Mexico and Central American countries.

There have been more than 1 million illegal border crossings this year, breaking records month over month.

“They are backed into a corner on their broader immigration agenda,” Doris Meissner, the commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1993 to 2000, told the Times. “The only tools that are available in the near term are pretty much pure enforcement.”

Biden officials also are worried about the implications the out-of-control border situation would have on midterm elections next fall.

“This desire to reverse Trump’s policies and to do so quickly has landed the Biden administration in this predicament, which was not unpredictable and is very sad to watch,”Alan Bersin, who served as commissioner of Customs and Border Protection in the Obama administration, told the Times.

The administration is mulling revamping the Remain in Mexico policy to allow a smaller number of immigrants seeking asylum to wait in Mexico as their cases are being processed in the courts — and provide them with better living conditions and access to lawyers, Politico reported on Monday.

The White House is discussing the change in policy, which some are calling “Remain in Mexico lite,” with Mexico to ensure that it conforms with the Supreme Court’s ruling and still holds true to Biden’s campaign pledge to end the “inhumane” program, which he tried to do after taking office on Jan. 20.

The Supreme Court upheld a federal judge’s order requiring the policy — known formally as the Migrant Protection Protocols program — to be reinstated.