House Republicans are moving to make permanent a Trump-era immigration initiative that forced tens of thousands of migrants seeking asylum to live in Mexico for months while awaiting court proceedings.
Rep. Matt Rosendale, the at-large congressman for Montana, introduced on Wednesday the Return Excessive Migrants and Asylees to International Neighbors in Mexico Act in an attempt to revive the Migrant Protection Protocols that President Biden recently suspended and ordered be reviewed. The Department of Homeland Security is now in the process of deciding the tens of thousands of existing claims and slowly allowing 25,000 asylum-seekers in Mexico to enter the United States for legal proceedings.
The bill would direct DHS to restart the 2-year-old program across all four southern border states and bar people who arrived at the southern border from being admitted into the U.S. while they await asylum decisions. The program was implemented in January 2019 as a growing number of migrant families were arriving at the southern border to seek asylum. Officers at land ports of entry attempted to limit the number of people who could apply for asylum each day but were still overwhelmed.
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“My goal is merely to keep in place what we’ve had in place for the last couple of years — to try and make sure that we don’t have this tremendous surge again,” Rosendale said in a phone call.
Migrants who presented themselves to federal law enforcement officers at border crossings and who were arrested for sneaking over the border are both returned to Mexico if they seek asylum during the process. Since then, 67,000 people were pushed back to Mexico, where many lived in tent communities that have been described by Democratic lawmakers as filthy and heartbreaking. Rosendale pushed back about the conditions asylum-seekers live in white waiting admission to the U.S.
“We’re not keeping them in tents,” said Rosendale. “What we’re doing is an analysis of people … to see if they truly are claiming asylum or whether they’re seeking economic relief. And if, if they have not met that threshold for the credible fear test, then clearly we have to do something, we being the United States, have to do something to make sure that they’re not just released into our country.”
Eighteen Republicans, including six from southern border states, have signed on to the legislation, but it is not expected to pass through the Democrat-controlled House. If it passed, it would likely face a challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued the Trump administration over the Migrant Protection Protocols.
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“What you will see is a decline in the pressure of so many people that are trying to cross over into the border,” Rosendale said.
