'Remain in Mexico' court hearings resume in El Paso
Plastic chairs line the hallways of the seventh floor at a federal courthouse in Downtown El Paso, where a group of men from Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba sat Tuesday as they listened to “know your rights” legal presentations before attending their first U.S. immigration court hearing.
It was day two of El Paso hearings for enrollees in Migrant Protection Protocols, the controversial program also known as “remain in Mexico,” which restarted legal proceedings on Monday despite the Biden administration’s unsuccessful efforts to end the program.
First adopted during the Trump administration, MPP requires migrants and asylum seekers to await their immigration court hearings from Mexico. The program was reinstated at the El Paso port of entry in December after a successful lawsuit by Texas and Missouri that argued the program had been unlawfully terminated earlier in 2021. A federal court ruling siding with the states was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in August.
The previous iteration of “remain in Mexico” has been decried by immigrant advocates for denying asylum seekers the right to seek asylum in the United States, and for widespread human rights abuses inflicted upon enrollees in Northern Mexican cities like Ciudad Juárez. It has also been criticized for low rates of legal representation among those enrolled in the program, increasing the hurdles to successfully gain asylum in the United States.
Read more: https://elpasomatters.org/2022/01/05/remain-in-mexico-court-hearings-resume-in-el-paso/