The ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), has just been renegotiated by the administrations of President Joe Biden in the US and Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico. Ironically, neither of the two heads of state are especially enthusiastic over a procedure that has been deeply criticised by human rights groups as inhumane, but they may still find themselves stuck with it for some time.
‘Remain in Mexico’ essentially means that those seeking to enter the US across the Mexican land border, and who want to apply for political asylum, rather than being held in the US pending an asylum court hearing, are forced to stay in Mexico, often in squalid temporary shelters in cities with high crime rates and drug-trafficking activity, where they are at the mercy of extortionists, racketeers, and people-smugglers.
Introduced under the Trump administration, the aim of the programme was to limit the number of migrants entering the US. At the peak, approximately 70,000 people were in transitory accommodation in Mexico, waiting for their cases to be heard.
President Biden cancelled the programme in January 2021, on just his second day in office, seeking to send a clear signal about introducing a more humane migration policy, but ‘Remain in Mexico’ simply refused to die. The conservative states of Texas and Missouri initiated legal action to reinstate the protocols, and in August the Supreme Court upheld lower court decisions finding in their favour.
As a result of this ruling, the US government is required by law to make “good faith efforts” to reinstate the programme, although it may still, at a future date, cancel the programme so long as it can prove in court that such a decision is not “arbitrary and capricious”. In a press conference on 2 December, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki stressed the reluctance of Biden to retain the programme, saying that he “continues to believe that the MPP has endemic flaws, imposed unjustifiable human costs, [and] pulled resources and personnel away from other priority efforts”.
If Biden has been ultimately forced by a legal ruling to extend MPP, President López Obrador’s rationale is that he is responding to heavy diplomatic pressure. Trump threatened to apply punitive tariffs on Mexican exports to the US. Biden has been less confrontational and more diplomatic, but López Obrador knows that being helpful on MPP may earn concessions on other issues in bilateral relations.
Mexico has therefore given qualified support. The Mexican foreign ministry said it had given “temporary” approval to re-starting MPP and has asked the US to make changes on humanitarian grounds. According to US officials these include coordinating housing for asylum seekers to be located away from the more dangerous border areas and providing transport to attend court hearings.
There will also be efforts to speed up asylum requests, which at present take at least six months to process. The US also plans to offer coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccines to those requesting asylum.
UNHCR responds
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) issued a statement criticising the reinstatement of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) and describing the humanitarian adjustments as insufficient. “UNHCR was never involved in supporting MPP and will not be supporting the reinstated policy,” the UNHCR said.