The Supreme Court's decision this week on the Remain in Mexico program does not have to be the final word on Pres. Biden's dismantling of most border enforcement.
It is discouraging that the court's 5-4 ruling states that a lower federal court was wrong to insist that the Biden Administration was required to keep the program going. The "Remain In Mexico" program was the most effective tool used by the Trump Administration to end chaos at the border and to greatly reduce the massive flows of foreign citizens fraudulently claiming asylum to gain access to U.S. jobs. But Pres. Biden doesn't want to use it.
But the ruling does not settle whether the Biden Administration can continue to release hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals into our country's interior on the mere basis that they make asylum claims.
When this Administration announced it was ending the program which is officially called the Migrant Protection Protocols, the states of Missouri and Texas, fearing the costs of large numbers of asylum-claimants being released into their jurisdictions, sued to force the continuation of the program.
The states won in a lower federal court but were turned down this week by Justices John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Stephen Breyer.
Penning the ruling, Chief Justice Roberts said the 1996 law authorizing the program does not require officials to return migrants to Mexico to wait while their asylum claims are being considered. Instead, he said, the law simply gives the government the option to do so, noting the use of the word "may" in the statute.
The dissenters were Justices Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas.
NumbersUSA's Director of Government Relations Rosemary Jenks immediately issued this statement to the nation's media:
NumbersUSA is disappointed that the majority in Biden v. Texas appears to ignore the fact that immigration law gives the government three choices when it comes to inadmissible aliens and asylum seekers:
(1) detain them during the removal process or asylum adjudication;
(2) return them to a contiguous country; or
(3) parole them on a case-by-case basis.
That the majority allows the government to pick a fourth option -- mass release into the United States -- enables the Biden Administration's non-enforcement of immigration law."
Justice Alito expressed the same concerns about the lawlessness of the Administration being allowed to choose an option that is not supposed to be available to it. He agreed that the government can choose not to make asylum claimants wait in Mexico but only if it is detaining them in the U.S. while their cases are considered. He said the Biden Administration is violating the law by deciding to "simply release into the country untold numbers of aliens" who very likely would eventually be denied asylum and ordered removed -- if they actually show up for their hearings.
Alito said the Administration's release of hundreds of thousands of uninvited foreign nationals into U.S. communities without having their claims reviewed . . .
. . . violates the clear terms of the law, but the Court looks the other way."
Andrew Arthur, a retired immigration judge, argued in the New York Post that Thursday's ruling is not the final word and . . .
.. . leaves it to the lower courts to determine whether the law requires illegal migrants to be detained and to assess whether Congress has placed restrictions on the administration's authority to release illegal migrants on parole and, if so, what those restrictions entail. Congressional Republicans hostile to the president's border policy will have their say on these issues if they gain control in November, too. Thursday's Supreme Court opinion is a setback to the states, but it's far from the last word on Biden's border policies."
ROY BECK is Founder of NumbersUSA
