The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the revival of an immigration policy that forced asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their court dates, in a blow to President Joe Biden.
Under former President Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” programme, tens of thousands of non-Mexican asylum seekers — mostly from Central America — were sent back over the border pending the outcome of their applications.
The Biden administration moved quickly to start dismantling and end the controversial policy, officially called the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP).
The administration eventually asked the Supreme Court for a stay in reinstating the programme.
In a brief unsigned order, however, the court said on Tuesday that “the application for a stay... is denied.”
In the order, the court referenced a separate case, in which it blocked Republicans in June 2020 from ending a federal programme giving legal status to hundreds of thousands of immigrants, known as Dreamers.
The court had found the Republican move to cancel the programme to be “arbitrary and capricious.”
The Supreme Court similarly said in its order on Tuesday that the Biden administration had “failed to show a likelihood of success on the claim that the memorandum rescinding the Migrant Protection Protocols was not arbitrary and capricious.”
