Court rulings put Biden in tough spot with Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’

A string of recent court decisions has put President BidenJoe BidenFBI releases first Sept. 11 document following Biden executive order Afghan pilots to be transferred to US base after fleeing to Uzbekistan: WSJ NATO head says alliance signed off on US withdrawal from Afghanistan MORE in a predicament: Re-implement his predecessor’s Remain in Mexico policy in good faith or turn to Trump-era tactics to dismantle the divisive immigration rule.

A lower court decision upheld by the Supreme Court last month orders the White House to resume former President TrumpDonald TrumpCapitol Police recommend disciplinary action for six officers in Jan. 6 internal probe Biden defends Afghanistan withdrawal on 9/11 Will the US emulate China’s tech takedown? MORE’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) — a program Biden pledged to end during the 2020 campaign.

Critics of the program, first enacted in December 2018, argue it essentially blocks migrants from applying for asylum. Since its implementation, the U.S. has pushed as many as 70,000 people back to Mexico, forcing them to wait in border towns for their day in U.S. immigration court.

“The question of what happens now turns on what does good faith mean?” said Jorge Loweree, policy director for the American Immigration Council.

“The federal government doesn’t only have a binary choice to detain every person at the southern border or expel them to Mexico — there are other options they have under law.”

While the initial district court decision largely forced the Biden administration to re-administer the program, the Fifth Circuit opinion that was upheld by the Supreme Court gives Biden officials much more leeway in how to do so.

It notes the government does not have to restart MPP overnight and that it has the discretion to allow some migrants to enter the country to pursue asylum claims without holding them in immigration detention.

They could choose to run with “Trump lite,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the Center for Immigration Law & Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law.

“The threshold question is a political one, it’s not actually legal one. Do we want to stick to the plan that we started when we ended MPP at the beginning and that President Biden promised to do at the debates and all that?” he said.

“Or do we want to now change course and adopt a policy that is the Trump policy or something closer to the Trump policy than what we had originally said we were going to do?”

It’s clear many Democratic lawmakers want Biden to stay the course and stick with his campaign promise.

“MPP does not represent our values as a country and should be permanently discarded along with the many other unlawful Trump administration policies designed to punish and deter refugees from seeking safety. The court orders leave ample room for your administration to ensure MPP never again puts another person in harm’s way,” nearly 30 Democrats wrote to Biden in a letter…