Harris is on a mission to repair Trump's failed immigration policies

 BY DONNA BRAZILE, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR 

© Getty Images

Women are used to cleaning up messes made by men. That’s the task Vice President Kamala Harris is now faced with regarding America’s broken immigration system: clean up the mess made by former President Donald Trump.

Trump, unable to leave the spotlight behind and ever-insistent that just about everything he did in office was perfect, is heading back to the southern border in Texas for a visit Wednesday with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. We can expect Trump to whine and complain about “illegal aliens” and to attack President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris’ five-month-old administration for its immigration and other policies with a series of false claims.

Trump has regularly denounced unauthorized immigrants since he announced he was running for president in 2015. In declaring his candidacy, he said: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. … They’re sending people that have lots of problems … They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” 

Trump promised dozens of times that he would use his brilliant deal-making skills to make Mexico pay for an impenetrable border wall — something that never happened. Instead, he wasted $15 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds on his wall. As The Texas Monthly reported in April, migrants are regularly using $5 ladders to scale the wall, which cost the U.S. $27 million per mile to build.

Biden wisely stopped construction on the wall. But Abbott, clearly wanting to please Trump, said he and leaders of the Texas legislature have agreed to spend $250 million in state funds to continue wall construction. He is soliciting donations from the public to build more and as of Friday, his office said $566,000 in donations have come in. 

Some critics of Biden have said he dumped the task of cleaning up Trump’s immigration mess on Harris because it’s an unsolvable problem and Biden wants her to take the blame for failing to solve it instead of taking the blame himself. I strongly disagree. 

I believe Biden assigned Harris the task of dealing with the root causes of unauthorized immigration from south of the border — and has given her other important assignments as well — because he has great confidence in her abilities to tackle the toughest challenges. 

Biden could have easily assigned his vice president tasks focusing solely on issues of particular concern to women and Black Americans, treating her as a token to emphasize her trailblazing role as the first woman, first Black person and first person of Asian descent to serve as vice president.

Instead, Biden is treating Harris as a full partner with the policy chops and skills to deal with a wide range of issues — just as President Barack Obama did with Biden when he was vice president.  

As a former U.S. senator and attorney general from California, Harris has been to the U.S.-Mexico border before and knows a great deal about the migration issue. She understands that individuals and families south of the border are making the long and dangerous trek north because they are fleeing poverty and violence in search of a better life. She knows that by helping our southern neighbors improve living conditions for their own citizens, the U.S. will reduce the flow of migrants entering our country and do what is morally right at the same time.  

It would be naïve to expect Harris or anyone else to quickly solve all the problems on the border and in the Northern Triangle countries (Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador) that are the source of much unauthorized immigration. But her visit to the border at El Paso, Texas on Friday and her visit earlier this month to meet with the presidents of Mexico and Guatemala were important early steps.   

Harris has made a good start advancing policies that are designed to keep our borders safe and secure in a humane manner. To its credit, the Biden-Harris administration has improved upon cruel Trump administration policies of holding migrants in inhumane conditions, separating frightened children from their parents and treating southern neighbor nations like enemy invaders instead of allies. 

Republicans once worked with Democrats on immigration reform. President Ronald Reagan signed a major immigration reform bill into law in 1986 granting amnesty to nearly 3 million undocumented immigrants. More recently, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) joined in an unsuccessful bipartisan immigration reform effort in 2013.  

Unfortunately, instead of joining with the Biden-Harris administration and congressional Democrats to put together an effective and bipartisan immigration policy, many congressional Republicans are now politicizing the issue. They clearly fear doing anything that could be interpreted as a repudiation of failed Trump policies, lest the former president denounce them and campaign against them in primaries.   

Trump will no doubt please his base by once again demonizing immigrants on his border visit Wednesday. But Biden and Harris will not be deterred and will continue working constructively to effectively deal with the immigration issue. More Republicans should join them.

Donna Brazile (@DonnaBrazile) is a political strategist, a contributor to ABC News and former chair of the Democratic National Committee. She is the author of “Hacks: Inside the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House.”

For more information contact us at http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

Democrats eye next stage of spending fight

 BY JORDAIN CARNEY

© Greg Nash

Democrats are bracing for a high profile tug-of-war as they pivot to the next phase of their complex spending fight. 

With President Biden working to shore up GOP support for a more narrowly focused bipartisan deal, Democrats are quietly working to greenlight budget resolutions that will allow them to bypass Republicans on a second more sweeping infrastructure bill. 

But the go-it-alone approach is putting a spotlight on pressure points within the party amid differences on how big to go and what to include with narrow majorities empowering every lawmaker to elbow for leverage. 

House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) acknowledged that some Democrats might be un-getable, setting up a rocky road as the White House and Democratic leadership ramps up its overtures to rank-and-file members. 

“It's not easy. ...And I'm sure that there are members of our caucus who are wary of voting for any budget resolution,” Yarmuth said. 

Part of the headache for Democrats is that they have essentially no room for error. They need total unity from their 50 members in the Senate and near unity in the House, where they can spare four votes. 

If they fail, Biden's biggest legislative priority is at risk of collapsing because agreement on a Democratic-only bill is key to progressives allowing the Senate’s smaller bipartisan bill to make it to Biden's desk.

Democrats will need to lean on their members twice: First to pass budget resolutions that include the ceiling for what they can spend on infrastructure and then a subsequent package that fleshes out the details on the Democratic-only package that will merge the pieces of Biden’s jobs and families plan that didn’t make the cut on the bipartisan deal. 

Aware that they have no room for error, Democrats are ramping up behind-the-scenes talks to get everyone on the same page. 

Yarmuth is meeting this week with House progressives and a coalition of fiscally conservative Democrats, known as Blue Dogs, later this week. Meanwhile, Biden advisor Steve Ricchetti met separately with coalitions of moderate and progressive House Democrats on Tuesday. 

Rep. Ilan Omar (D-Minn.) appeared positive when talking to reporters after the meeting, saying that the White House indicated that it was open to their priorities like including immigration reform and expanding Medicare as part of the Democratic-only infrastructure package. 

Both ideas, expanding Medicare and squeezing in immigration reform, have also been publicly and privately discussed on the Senate side though they’ll need to get it by the parliamentarian, who acts as a gatekeeper for what can be included in a reconciliation bill.

“I think we feel better about the strategy,” she said. 

Meanwhile, Senate Budget Committee Democrats expect to talk by phone this week as they start to compare their ideas for both the budget resolution and the subsequent infrastructure bill. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, has indicated that he wants to go as high as $6 trillion and pay for roughly half of that spending. 

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a member of the panel, predicted that Democrats could have a top-line by the time they return from a July 4 recess in mid-July. 

“You need that and you need some sense of what the big buckets are,” Kaine said, about the top-line figure. “I think the key here is let’s all get on the same page on this side.” 

Yarmuth suggested that one option for the House would be to wait for the Senate to send over its budget resolution. 

“We have very slim margins here, and it might be hard to get people to vote for a budget resolution that's not the same as the Senate resolution. It may be hard to get everybody on my committee to vote for a resolution that's different. ... We need every vote, essentially,” he said, while stressing that no decisions have been made.

Sanders has acknowledged that they won’t end up with a $6 trillion package, but he’s also publicly challenging skeptics to name what part of his legislative goals they don’t find worthy of inclusion. 

“For those who say the budget framework I proposed costs ‘too much’ what would you cut? Combatting climate change? Childcare? Universal Pre-K? Paid family & medical leave? Dental, hearing & vision? Housing? Long-term home health care? Child Tax Credit? Waiting....,” he tweeted. 

Democrats need to win over moderates in both chambers who are increasingly wary of big spending.

House leaders have acknowledged that they are likely to lose votes, with Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) already saying he won’t support a budget resolution. Reps. Ed Case (D-Hawaii) and Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), have raised public concerns about waiting until the Democratic-only bill is ready to go before they take up the Senate’s bipartisan bill. 

And while Manchin has signaled that he’s on board with a Democratic-only bill, he’s not committed to going as big as progressives.

“But if they think in reconciliation I'm going to throw caution to the wind and go to $5 trillion or $6 trillion when we can only afford $1 trillion or $1.5 trillion or maybe $2 trillion and what we can pay for, then I can't be there,” Manchin told ABC News’ “This Week.” 

Manchin isn’t on the Budget Committee but under the Senate’s reconciliation process, any senator will be able to force a vote on changes to the budget resolution that sets up the infrastructure bill once it is on the Senate floor. 

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the only Democrat from the centrists group on the Budget Committee, acknowledged that they’ll need to find a way to bridge the gulfs in the Democratic caucus. 

“That's why I get to be in the middle of these negotiations,” Warner said, “is to find some breakthrough between where Bernie's at, where Joe Manchin is at.” 

Naomi Jagoda and Mike Lillis contributed to this report, which was updated at 9:52 p.m.

For more information contact us at http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

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Trump, GOP return to border to rev up base

 BY SCOTT WONG

© GETTY IMAGES

Former President Trump on Wednesday will travel to South Texas, where he’s expected to showcase his signature border wall and attack the Biden administration over the surge of migrants — a topic the GOP sees as a potent campaign issue to rev up the base and win back the House and Senate in 2022.

Trump will be joined in the Rio Grande Valley by some familiar conservative allies. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), who has vowed to complete Trump’s wall with state funds and private donations, will host the former president in Weslaco for a roundtable discussion on border security. Then the pair will tour the border wall, accompanied by two dozen House members of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), led by Chairman Jim Banks (R-Ind.).

Later Wednesday afternoon, Trump and Abbott will participate in a town hall, moderated by Fox News host Sean Hannity and attended by supporters, in a hangar in the South Texas International Airport in Edinburg.

“Republicans understand what a severe case of invasion and illegal behavior we have at the border. And the Biden administration has done nothing about it,” said Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas), who will be among the RSC members who will join Trump at the border.

Trump “is going to reemphasize that we should continue to build the wall and that catch-and-release needs to be stopped.”

The Lone Star State is just the latest stop for Trump as he embarks on a jam-packed summer of campaign rallies and other public appearances and continues to flirt with a 2024 presidential comeback campaign.

Earlier this month, Trump shocked his party at a North Carolina rally by making a surprise endorsement of little-known Rep. Ted Budd in the GOP primary for an open Senate seat. On Saturday, Trump had revenge on his mind, campaigning in Ohio against a fellow Republican, Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, who voted to impeach the 45th president and still speaks out against Trump’s election lies.

And Trump will celebrate the Fourth of July weekend with a big campaign rally at the fairgrounds in Sarasota, Fla., his adopted home state.

More than five months after leaving the White House, Trump has made clear he remains the de facto leader of the Republican Party; plans to play the role of kingmaker and reward loyalists in congressional, gubernatorial and other statewide races; and will have a major hand in shaping the party agenda as GOP leaders look to take back control of both chambers of Congress in next year’s midterm elections.

“He’s definitely the leader of the party,” Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said on ABC’s “This Week” after Trump drew a big crowd at his rally in the Buckeye State.

Trump’s Texas visit will be a victory lap of sorts. For months, Trump and Republicans hammered Vice President Harris for failing to visit the border after President Biden tapped her to spearhead the administration’s response to a surge in Central American migrants, many of them children, crossing the border illegally.

Harris, a former California senator and state attorney general who has had years of experience handling border issues, refused to kowtow to GOP demands, even as several groups of Senate and House GOP lawmakers staged press conferences and photo ops at the border to blast the vice president’s inaction.

But on Friday, after news of Trump’s planned visit, Harris relented, traveling to El Paso, Texas, to meet with border agents and tour a migrant processing center. Harris’s team argued the vice president was not caving to pressure — Harris herself insisted she was focused on the “root causes” of the surge from Central America — but Trump and his GOP allies chalked it up as a symbolic victory.

© GETTY IMAGES

Former President Trump on Wednesday will travel to South Texas, where he’s expected to showcase his signature border wall and attack the Biden administration over the surge of migrants — a topic the GOP sees as a potent campaign issue to rev up the base and win back the House and Senate in 2022.

Trump will be joined in the Rio Grande Valley by some familiar conservative allies. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), who has vowed to complete Trump’s wall with state funds and private donations, will host the former president in Weslaco for a roundtable discussion on border security. Then the pair will tour the border wall, accompanied by two dozen House members of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), led by Chairman Jim Banks (R-Ind.).

Later Wednesday afternoon, Trump and Abbott will participate in a town hall, moderated by Fox News host Sean Hannity and attended by supporters, in a hangar in the South Texas International Airport in Edinburg.

“Republicans understand what a severe case of invasion and illegal behavior we have at the border. And the Biden administration has done nothing about it,” said Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas), who will be among the RSC members who will join Trump at the border.

Trump “is going to reemphasize that we should continue to build the wall and that catch-and-release needs to be stopped.”

The Lone Star State is just the latest stop for Trump as he embarks on a jam-packed summer of campaign rallies and other public appearances and continues to flirt with a 2024 presidential comeback campaign.

Earlier this month, Trump shocked his party at a North Carolina rally by making a surprise endorsement of little-known Rep. Ted Budd in the GOP primary for an open Senate seat. On Saturday, Trump had revenge on his mind, campaigning in Ohio against a fellow Republican, Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, who voted to impeach the 45th president and still speaks out against Trump’s election lies.

And Trump will celebrate the Fourth of July weekend with a big campaign rally at the fairgrounds in Sarasota, Fla., his adopted home state.

More than five months after leaving the White House, Trump has made clear he remains the de facto leader of the Republican Party; plans to play the role of kingmaker and reward loyalists in congressional, gubernatorial and other statewide races; and will have a major hand in shaping the party agenda as GOP leaders look to take back control of both chambers of Congress in next year’s midterm elections.

“He’s definitely the leader of the party,” Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said on ABC’s “This Week” after Trump drew a big crowd at his rally in the Buckeye State.

Trump’s Texas visit will be a victory lap of sorts. For months, Trump and Republicans hammered Vice President Harris for failing to visit the border after President Biden tapped her to spearhead the administration’s response to a surge in Central American migrants, many of them children, crossing the border illegally.

Harris, a former California senator and state attorney general who has had years of experience handling border issues, refused to kowtow to GOP demands, even as several groups of Senate and House GOP lawmakers staged press conferences and photo ops at the border to blast the vice president’s inaction.

But on Friday, after news of Trump’s planned visit, Harris relented, traveling to El Paso, Texas, to meet with border agents and tour a migrant processing center. Harris’s team argued the vice president was not caving to pressure — Harris herself insisted she was focused on the “root causes” of the surge from Central America — but Trump and his GOP allies chalked it up as a symbolic victory.

“Kamala Harris, your vice president, only went to the border yesterday for the one simple reason: that I announced that I was going,” Trump told the crowd at his rally in Wellington, Ohio.

“If I didn’t do that, I don’t know if she was ever going to go.”

This will mark Trump’s first visit to the border since leaving the White House. He last visited the McAllen area on Jan. 12, just days before his term ended. It was his last trip as president outside of Washington.

But Trump’s return to the Rio Grande Valley is not just about touting the construction of his prized border wall. In 2020, Trump lost the White House but Republicans made unexpected inroads with Hispanic voters in the Rio Grande Valley, a rural region in the southern tip of Texas that had been dominated by Democrats in past elections.

Republicans got another boost this month when Republican Javier Villalobos defeated Democrat Veronica Vela Whitacre by roughly 200 votes in the mayoral race in McAllen, which is 85 percent Hispanic.

So Trump and Republicans will look to expand their support among rural Latinos in the region as they vie to hold on to power in the critical state of Texas.

“The president made tremendous inroads in the Hispanic vote down in the Valley,” said Williams, who has been making trips to the border since 2005 when he was appointed Texas secretary of state. “They think like we Republicans do: They want less government, and they want to be free to realize their dreams, and these Democrats have taken that for granted.”

“Border security is No. 1 with them,” he added. “They don’t support law-breaking, and they don’t support people running through the ports of entry and destroying property.”

For more information contact us at http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

Harris makes highly anticipated trip to border

 BY BRETT SAMUELS AND RAFAEL BERNAL 

Vice President Harris on Friday made a closely watched trip to the southern border, where she met with border agents and young migrants and doubled down on the need to focus on the reason people are making the journey to the U.S. from Mexico and Central America.

Harris traveled to El Paso, Texas, her first trip to the U.S.-Mexico border as vice president and her first since President Biden announced she would lead the administration’s efforts to stem the flow of migrants to the border from Northern Triangle nations.

While Harris did not make any policy announcements or urge migrants not to make the trip to the U.S. as she did during a recent trip to Guatemala, she declared her border appearance productive while keeping the focus on the administration's broader goals.

“This has been a very important trip,” Harris said during a press conference. “This has been a trip that also is connected with the obvious point: If you want to deal with a problem, you can’t just deal with the symptom of the problem, you’ve got to figure out what caused it to happen.”

Harris met with border agents at a central processing center and received a briefing on the facility’s operations and the technology being used to combat transnational crime.

The vice president also stopped at a port of entry that typically sees thousands of migrants pass through each day. While there, she met with five young girls who came to the U.S. from Central America. Harris held a roundtable with nonprofit and advocacy groups in El Paso before departing.

Harris's team has been adamant in insisting that the vice president's job is a diplomatic role, addressing relations with Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico, while Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra are in charge of border management.

Most of Harris’s comments on Friday focused on the ongoing efforts to address the root causes of migration, framing her visit to El Paso as a way to see the consequences of failing to do so.

“Let’s do the work of agreeing you can’t just react to a problem without solving it at its roots. Let’s agree to that,” Harris said. “So, when I think about what I heard and saw today, I will tell you, it was very reaffirming of everything I heard and saw when I was in Guatemala, everything that I discussed with President [Andrés Manuel] López Obrador in Mexico about the partnership between the United States and Mexico to invest in the root causes. Seeing that there is a very clear and direct connection.”

The border visit followed weeks of outcry from Republicans and a few border-district Democrats who argued Harris and Biden were ignoring the seriousness of the surge in migrants by declining to travel there. Harris heightened the scrutiny when she laughed at a question from NBC’s Lester Holt while in Guatemala about why she had not visited the border, pointing out she also had not gone to Europe.

White House officials vehemently denied the trip was scheduled in response to Republican criticism or to preempt a visit to the border next week from former President Trump.

“This administration does not take their cues from Republican criticism, nor from the former President of the United States of America,” top Harris aide Symone Sanders told reporters. "We have said, over a number of different occasions … that she would go to the border. She has been before. She would go again. She would go when it was appropriate, when it made sense.”

Still, some Democrats and many Republicans were unsatisfied with Harris’s decision to visit El Paso. The area is represented by Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), who has been more supportive of the administration on immigration than some other Texas Democrats, and critics questioned why Harris would not go to the Rio Grande Valley or another area that has borne the brunt of the migration crisis.

"Communities like El Paso are struggling because of the damage the Biden-Harris administration has caused by opening the floodgates to human smugglers and drug cartels," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said in a statement. "But, if the Vice President came to Texas without a concrete plan to secure our border and is unwilling to reverse her administration’s failed immigration policies that caused the crisis, then her visit is nothing short of a glorified photo-op."

Harris's choice of El Paso can also be read as a rebuke to Rep. Henry Cuéllar (D-Texas) in the Rio Grande Valley, who has been critical of the Biden administration's border policies, and a reward to El Paso's Escobar.

Cuéllar, who represents Laredo, has been a frequent guest on Fox News, where he's been critical of the vice president, and has insisted that border management falls within Harris's migration portfolio.

Rep. Filemón Vela (D-Texas), a vocal opponent of the border wall who also represents a district in the Rio Grande Valley, defended Harris's choice of border venue for her first visit.

Asked whether he would have accepted the invitation from Cuéllar or Escobar in Harris's shoes, Vela replied, "Veronica's."

"The vice president can't be everywhere and El Paso is populated with migrant children and families," said Vela.

"And besides, I'm in the Rio Grande Valley right now and we are focused on things other than migration. For example, the 1,400 jobs that SpaceX has created in the last 14 months. This is the border that we want to talk about down here," he added.

Mayorkas, who had previously taken credit for recommending El Paso as the appropriate venue for Harris's trip, doubled down Friday.

“I recommended to the vice president that we visit El Paso because it is one of the busiest scores on the border,” Mayorkas said. “El Paso reflects the many diverse elements of our mission. It demonstrates also the progress that has been made, and the work that remains.”

Harris argued the border city was a perfect encapsulation of the effects of the surge in migration and of the consequences of the Trump administration’s policies that aimed to restrict both legal and illegal immigration.

“It is here in El Paso that the previous administration’s child separation policy was unveiled,” Harris said. “It is here in El Paso that the return to Mexico policy from the previous administration was implemented. We have seen the disaster that resulted from that.”

The Biden administration has faced steady pressure to address the situation at the border as the number of migrants making their way to the U.S. surged in the first months of 2021, with critics arguing the relaxing of Trump-era policies had encouraged them to make the journey.

Housing facilities for migrant children were overcrowded as the number of unaccompanied children and families agents encountered at the border hit a record of nearly 19,000 in March. Those numbers have steadily decreased in the months since, though agents still encountered more than 14,000 unaccompanied children in May.

Progressive immigration advocates, meanwhile, largely downplayed the importance of the visit, focusing on the possibility of immigration legislation instead.

"What we're concerned with is driving forward legislation that will put millions on a pathway to citizenship," said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a progressive immigration reform advocacy group.

"The vice president is one person in that mix, quite frankly. We're more concerned with policies that affect people on the ground, with legislative fights that affect millions, and we'll leave the political pundits to talk about, 'did she go to the right place and did she say the right thing?'" added Sharry.

For more information contact us at http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

Migrant children face alarming conditions in US shelter: BBC investigation

 BY CAROLINE VAKIL

© Getty Images

Migrant children are living in "heartbreaking" conditions at a tent camp on the grounds of Fort Bliss military base in El Paso, Texas, according to a BBC investigation published Tuesday.

Facility staff and children who spoke to the BBC described COVID-19 and lice outbreaks, allegations of sexual abuse, a clothing shortage, and a report of a child who claimed he received uncooked meat.

According to the news outlet, there are at least 12 tents at the Fort Bliss camp, and some have as many as hundreds of children in them at a time.

"Hundreds of children have tested positive for Covid," one employee told the BBC, which reported that flu and strep throat outbreaks have also occurred at the camp.

Another employee told the BBC that lice was “rampant.”

“And one of the major shortages has been lice kits,” the employee said.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would not allow the BBC into the camp but told the news outlet in a statement that it’s "providing required standards of care for children such as clean and comfortable sleeping quarters, meals, toiletries, laundry, educational and recreational activities, and access to medical services."

An HHS spokesperson later issued a statement saying: “We take our humanitarian mission and the well-being of children in our care seriously. HHS has taken action to improve the conditions at Fort Bliss and at all Emergency Influx Sites."

"Children are receiving nutritionally-appropriate meals and there are now over 50 mental health professionals on site at Fort Bliss and counselors at all other emergency influx sites,” the spokesperson added.

Vice President Harris is scheduled to visit the border on Friday with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. In March, the number of unaccompanied children spiked to 19,000 but receded to 14,000 in May.

Updated at 7:08 p.m.

For more information contact us at http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

DHS considering asylum for migrants whose cases were terminated under Trump

 BY REBECCA BEITSCH

© Getty Images

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will be reconsidering the cases of migrants who were previously barred from seeking asylum in the U.S. under the Trump administration.

Former President Trump’s policy, implemented in 2019, blocked migrants at the Mexican border from entering the U.S. to apply for asylum, leaving what the Biden administration estimates is now around 35,000 people awaiting their fate in Mexico under the so-called Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), or the "Remain in Mexico" policy. 

In a statement, DHS said the move was "part of our continued effort to restore safe, orderly, and humane processing at the Southwest Border."

"DHS will expand the pool of MPP-enrolled individuals who are eligible for processing into the United States," the department added. "DHS will continue to process for entry into the United States MPP enrollees with pending proceedings."

Trump implemented Remain in Mexico in 2019, forcing immigrants fleeing dangerous situations to stay south of the border while awaiting court hearings in the U.S. Under the policy, the government removed more than 60,000 migrants to the Mexican border.

President Biden paused Remain in Mexico shortly after taking office, formally terminating the program in June. The Supreme Court has since dismissed pending legal action on the program as moot. 

“Too many people were denied their right to due process and rejected for entry into the United States under the abhorrent ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy,” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán (D-Calif.) said in a statement.

“By keeping migrants in dangerous conditions in Mexico, the Trump administration ensured many people would not be able to appear at their hearings and their claims would be rejected. Allowing these people to be eligible for processing is the right thing to do.”

But some Republicans on the Homeland Security panel have asked DHS to turn over documents tied to their decisionmaking, with Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.) suggesting the Biden administration may have reversed the program too quickly to comply with the law. 

“The Department’s seemingly impulsive announcement lacked explanation, justification, or any other indicia that the decision had been made only after the careful deliberations and consultations that are both appropriate and lawfully required of Executive Branch agencies by the Administrative Procedures Act (APA),” Guest wrote in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday.

Immigration advocates have been pushing hard for the Biden administration to reverse the program. 

The move will allow the government to reconsider the cases of some 6,686 migrants who had their cases terminated under MPP and another 27,842 migrants who received deportation orders “in absentia,” according to data collected by the University of Syracuse.  

In February the Biden administration began processing some MPP cases, allowing as many as 300 people per day to enter the U.S. at three different ports of entry.

It’s also sought to ease asylum restrictions more broadly.

Earlier this month Attorney General Merrick Garland struck down two decisions from his predecessors that limited asylum for victims of domestic violence as well as those seeking asylum based on ties to persecuted family members — something that could be particularly important to those from countries with serious gang violence.

In May, the Biden administration also created a dedicated docket to process some asylum cases — a move critics feared could shortcut migrants due process rights.

—Updated at 10:30 a.m. Joseph Choi contributed.

For more information contact us at http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

Head of Border Patrol resigning from post

 BY LEXI LONAS 

The head of the U.S. Border Patrol announced on Wednesday he is resigning from his post.

Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott, who took his position during the Trump administration in 2020, posted on Facebook that he will remain as head of the Border Patrol for around 60 days so a smooth transition can be made.

Scott has been in the position since February 2020. It was expected he would step down after President Biden was elected.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Border Patrol said it did not have an official statement but was aware of Scott's Facebook post.

Scott said he received a notice from the federal government that he had to either relocate, resign or retire from his position. The notice is not disciplinary and no explanation was given, according to Scott.

“Just a simple needs of the service directed reassignment so the new administration can place the person they want in the position,” Scott wrote. 

People familiar with the situation told CNN that Border Patrol Deputy Chief Raul Ortiz is expected to replace Scott on an acting basis.

The move comes as Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have been under scrutiny from Republicans and Democrats for their handling of the border.

Harris has been criticized for telling Guatemalans not to come to the U.S. and for not visiting the border since she has been in office. She recently announced she will be visiting the border this Friday.

Rebecca Beitsch contributed to this report.

For more information contact us at http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/