Confusion on the border: Court halts Trump's 'Remain in Mexico' rule then reverses itself

AUSTIN — Confusion ricocheted across the border Friday as a federal appeals court blocked the Trump administration’s policy of returning asylum-seekers to Mexico to await court hearings, a practice immigrant advocates have denounced as inhumane and deadly.

An earlier decision Friday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco dealt a blow to the Trump administration. The process — called the Migrant Protection Protocols, or MPP, also known as "Remain in Mexico" — had been seen as a successful tool in President Donald Trump’s asylum crackdown.

Throngs of migrants in the program flocked to international crossings across the border, including Matamoros, Ciudad Juárez, Nogales and Tijuana, buoyed by the chance of being let into the U.S. The crossing this morning remained under heavy guard.

But the decision — and migrants' hopes — lasted only a few hours. About 7 p.m. Friday, the 9th Circuit judges granted an emergency stay on the injunction, as requested by the Trump administration, effectively reinstating MPP while further arguments are heard. The case appears to be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"This evening, with support of DOJ attorneys and CBP’s declaration, the 9th Circuit granted a stay of its earlier order enjoining MPP," Acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan tweeted Late Friday. "@CBP will immediately reinstate MPP!"

Since the U.S. Department of Homeland Security rolled out the program in January 2019, the U.S. government has sent back more than 60,000 people to seven Mexican border cities from Tijuana to Matamoros. Those included some of those most dangerous areas of the border, exposing migrants to assaults, kidnappings, murders and extortion.

In a court filing Friday, Robert Perez, CBP's deputy commissioner, said there are an estimated 25,000 migrants currently in the MPP program. Halting the policy would create "an enormous strain" on border facilities and personnel if those migrants suddenly needed to be processed into the U.S., he wrote. 

U.S. authorities have argued that the policy keeps migrants from slipping into the U.S. and deters other migrants considering crossing from the U.S. southern border.

Earlier Friday, advocates and migrants' attorneys applauded the initial decision, denouncing the MPP program as inhumane and a violation of international rights for migrants. 

“This is really a tremendous decision recognizing the illegality of the Remain in Mexico program,” said Elissa Steglich, co-director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, who makes regular trips to Texas border towns to interview MPP migrants and monitor their legal proceedings. “It means that asylum-seekers can now have access to the U.S. asylum system in a humane way.”

News that the MPP program had been temporarily halted spread quickly through the shelters and makeshift camps along the U.S.-Mexico border, where migrants await their asylum hearings. 

In Matamoros and Ciudad Juárez, dozens of migrants flocked to the international bridges hoping CBP agents would them pass — only to find the bridge closed and riot-geared police patrolling nearby. The Paso Del Norte International Bridge & Port of Entry in Juárez, across from El Paso, was temporarily closed because of the dozens of asylum-seekers congregating there. 

In Nuevo Laredo, site of widespread kidnappings and assaults on migrants, shelters quickly filled with the buzz of the MPP policy potentially ending. Pastor Lorenzo Ortiz, who oversees two shelters there, said he was fielding calls from migrants asking if they should rush to the bridge. 

There was a little bit of a panic,” said Ortiz, who runs two shelters filled with MPP migrants in Nuevo Laredo.

The ruling "created some conflict and confusion," he said. "I’m telling people to just wait, don’t do anything wrong that could impact your case.”

Ortiz said he hopes the U.S. government takes the steps they did when throngs of Cuban migrants piled up at the foot of the bridge in Nuevo Laredo after the government abolished the "wet foot/dry foot" rule, which eased the way for Cubans reaching U.S. soil to stay in the U.S.

After that measure ended in 2017 under President Obama, Customs and Border Protection officers took around 20 to 30 Cubans a day until they were all processed into the U.S. within about nine months, he said. 

Ortiz said he doubts he will see the same orderly reaction this time around. 

“It sounds like good news, but I don’t think it’ll really be good news,” he said. “Trump will find a way to stop this.”

In its earlier decision, the 9th Circuit reinstated a lower court's injunction blocking the Trump administration from enforcing a rule that made migrants ineligible for asylum if they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in between the ports of entry.

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