Democrats urge Biden to fight restart of Trump immigration policy

Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocates pressed President Joe Biden on Wednesday to take new steps to end an immigration policy begun by his predecessor Donald Trump after the top U.S. court ordered that the remain in Mexico program be reinstated.

The policy put in place by Trump, a Republican, forced thousands of asylum seekers to stay in Mexico to await U.S. hearings. In one of his first acts as president in January, Biden, a Democrat, ended the policy, formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP).

The conservative-majority Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered that Biden must comply with a Texas-based federal judge’s ruling to revive the program, although federal officials retain some discretion on how to do that. Republican-led Texas and Missouri had challenged Biden’s ending of the program, saying his administration failed to follow the correct legal process.

The MPP was a cornerstone of Trump’s hardline immigration policies. Biden promised what he called a more humane approach to immigration.

U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez, a Democrat, called on Biden’s administration “to curtail and put a lawful end to the implementation of this disgraceful policy.”

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