On Monday night, an appeals court rejected the Biden administration’s appeal to end the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy.
The ruling was made by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on the policy that Biden suspended shortly after taking office at the beginning the year.
The states of Texas and Missouri had sued over the administration’s decision and a federal judge ruled that the policy had to be reinstated.
On Monday, the court said the Department of Homeland Security “claims the power to implement a massive policy reversal — affecting billions of dollars and countless people — simply by typing out a new Word document and posting it on the internet”.
In compliance with the lower court order, asylum seekers were sent back to Mexico starting last week.
Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas thinks the policy “has endemic flaws, imposed unjustifiable human costs, pulled resources and personnel away from other priority efforts, and failed to address the root causes of irregular migration”.
Judge Oldham of the 5th Circuit said “We address and reject each of the Government’s reviewability arguments and determine that DHS has come nowhere close to shouldering its heavy burden to show that it can make law in a vacuum”.