Revival of border policy seen as a relief by some
MATAMOROS, Mexico — When the Supreme Court effectively revived a cornerstone of Trump-era migration policy late last month, it looked like a major defeat for President Joe Biden.
After all, Biden had condemned the policy — which requires asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico — as “inhumane” and suspended it on his first day in office, part of an aggressive push to dismantle former President Donald Trump’s harshest migration policies.
But among some Biden officials, the court’s order was quietly greeted with something other than dismay, current and former officials said: It brought some measure of relief.
Before that ruling, Biden’s steps to begin loosening the reins on migration had been quickly followed by a surge of people heading north, overwhelming the southwest border. Apprehensions of migrants hit a two-decade high in July, a trend officials fear will continue into the fall.
Concern had already been building in the administration that the speed of its immigration changes may have encouraged migrants to stream toward the United States, current and former officials said.
In fact, some Biden officials were already talking about reviving Trump’s policy in a limited way to deter migration, said the officials, who have worked on immigration policy but were not authorized to speak publicly about the administration’s internal debates on the issue. Then the Supreme Court order came, providing the administration with the political cover to adopt the policy in some form without provoking as much ire from Democrats who reviled Trump’s border policies.
Now, the officials say, they have an opportunity to take a step back, come up with a more humane version of Trump’s policy and, they hope, reduce the enormous number of people arriving at the border.
“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,” said Alan Bersin, who served as commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection under President Barack Obama.
The policy at the center of the case — commonly known as Remain in Mexico — quickly became one of the most contentious elements of Trump’s immigration agenda because it upended central provisions of the nation’s asylum system. Instead of allowing migrants to enter the United States while the courts assessed their claims, it made thousands of asylum-seekers wait in squalid encampments in Mexico rife with reports of kidnappings, extortion and other serious abuses.
After Biden suspended the policy, Texas and Missouri sued the administration, arguing that the influx of people “imposed severe and ongoing burdens” on the states. The Supreme Court refused to block a lower court’s ruling that required the program to be restored, forcing the administration to comply with it while the appeals process unfolds.
But the ambivalence within corners of the administration reflects a broader worry: that the border crisis could have electoral repercussions for the Democrats, potentially dooming hopes of pushing through a more significant overhaul of the nation’s migration and asylum systems.
“They are backed into a corner on their broader immigration agenda,” Doris Meissner, commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1993 to 2000, said of the Biden administration. “The only tools that are available in the near term are pretty much pure enforcement.”
Biden not only allowed migrants to apply for asylum, but he also refused to immediately expel unaccompanied children and moved to freeze deportations.
As migrants surged to the border, Republicans attacked the new administration on multiple fronts, forcing the president to retreat from key campaign promises and angering some in his base.
Biden has, in turn, leaned on Mexico and Central America to step up their own border enforcement. But the efforts have not meaningfully curbed the flows north, and they have led to violent attacks on migrants by law enforcement in those countries.
While the administration tried to change the welcoming tone it set early on, dispatching Vice President Kamala Harris to Guatemala to proclaim the border closed in June, migrants and smugglers say the encouraging signals sent at the outset of Biden’s term are all anyone remembers.
“‘We heard the news that the U.S. opened the borders,’” said Abraham Barberi, a pastor in the border city of Matamoros, recounting what migrants routinely tell him. So many came to town that Barberi turned his church into a migrant shelter soon after Biden took office, as mothers and their toddlers started showing up at his door.
“The Biden administration said, ‘We’re going to let people in,’” Barberi said, zigzagging between the thin mattresses that now cover the church floors. “That’s when everyone flooded.”
Thousands of asylum-seekers were gradually let into the United States after Biden ended the Trump policy of forcing them to wait in Mexico, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, which tracks migration data. But almost immediately, Barberi said, a gusher of new migrants showed up.