by Amy Howe at SCOTUSblog
The Supreme Court heard oral argument on Tuesday in the battle over the Biden administration’s efforts to end one of the Trump administration’s signature immigration policies. The lower courts ordered the Biden administration to reinstate the controversial policy, which requires asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while they wait for a hearing in U.S. courts. During nearly two hours of oral argument in Biden v. Texas, the justices appeared torn on whether the Biden administration must maintain the so-called “remain in Mexico” policy, which is formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols.
Some justices suggested that the decision to end the policy was inconsistent with federal immigration law, and they expressed doubt that Congress intended to allow the release of large numbers of asylum seekers into the United States. But on the other hand, members of the court – including some conservative justices – challenged the idea that Texas and Missouri could ask a federal court to require the Biden administration to maintain the program, particularly when doing so requires the cooperation of the Mexican government.
Representing the Biden administration, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the justices that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas had opted to end the MPP after determining that the program’s benefits “were outweighed by its domestic, humanitarian, and foreign policy costs.” It was, Prelogar stressed, an exercise of “his statutory discretion to make a policy judgment.”
By contrast, Texas Solicitor General Judd Stone emphasized that under federal immigration law, the government has three options for asylum seekers who arrive at the U.S. border. It can decide on a case-by-case basis to temporarily allow them into the United States, it can return them to Mexico or Canada if they have arrived by land, or it can hold them in a U.S. detention center while they wait for a hearing. The Biden administration has to choose one of those options, Stone stressed, and ending MPP would mean that the Biden administration is violating federal law…
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