WASHINGTON The Trump administration moved Monday to restart a controversial policy that forces Central American asylum-seekers to return to Mexico to await adjudication of their claims, an approach dubbed Remain in Mexico.
The move came after a federal appeals court in California temporarily lifted an injunction on Friday that had blocked the policy.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials told staff at the agencys main asylum office in Arlington, Va., on Monday to prepare for asylum-seekers to again be sent back across the border, according to emails obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
An internal agency memo on Monday cited Fridays decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that granted the governments emergency motion for a stay of a lower court ruling that had blocked the policy. The administration calls the policy Migrant Protection Protocols.
This means that implementation of MPP may resume pending the ongoing litigation, the memo reads. In the meantime we have staff on standby for new referrals.
Although the legal ruling allowed the administration to again force asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases are processed in U.S. courts, authorities did not return any migrants over the weekend.
The appeals court is expected to decide this week whether to extend the temporary stay and allow the Remain in Mexico policy to remain in effect.
The statute explicitly authorizing the use of the Migrant Protection Protocols has been on the books for more than two decades, said Alexei Woltornist, a Justice Department spokesman, and the Department of Justice will robustly defend our ability to use it.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Under the policy, which then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced in December, authorities have forcibly returned more than 1,000 asylum-seekers, mostly from Central America, to Mexico.
The policys slow and chaotic rollout frustrated administration officials, frontline immigration officers and advocates alike, and the legal back-and-forth added to the confusion.
The initial court ruling last Monday that blocked further returns came down a day after the president had ousted Nielsen, whod just called for a border-wide, aggressive expansion of the policy, and launched a purge of President Donald Trumps top Homeland Security officials.
The president also threatened to transfer detained immigrants into so-called sanctuary cities in California and elsewhere, despite his own advisers warnings that such a move would likely violate the law.
The Mexican government, which has insisted the returns policy is unilateral although it has cooperated so far, issued a careful statement last week rejecting the Trump administrations suggestion that the policy was part of a cooperative program extensively negotiated with Mexican counterparts.
Alan Bersin, who served as a senior Homeland Security official in the Obama administration, says there is nothing unusual about the department proceeding with the Remain in Mexico policy while the injunction is lifted.
