Associated Press reports that ending the Trump-era program won’t have much of an impact, but Fox News wants you to think it means we’re all going to be overrun with criminal immigrants.
From AP (emphases added):
The Supreme Court said Thursday the Biden administration can scrap a Trump-era immigration policy to make asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration courts, a victory for a White House that still must address the growing number of people seeking refuge at America’s southern border.
The ruling will have little immediate impact because the policy has been seldom applied under President Joe Biden, who reinstated it under a court order in December. It was his predecessor, Donald Trump, who launched the “Remain in Mexico” policy and fully embraced it.
But to listen to National Border Patrol Council Vice President Hector Garza on Fox’s Your World show, you might think the policy was the only thing keeping you safe from dangerous immigrants who are now about to overtake the border and infiltrate communities all over the country.
Garza warned about a “catch and release program on steroids.” He claimed, “All these criminal illegal aliens and all these drug smugglers will be scot-free, and aliens will continue to die in the back of 18-wheelers, and illegal aliens will continue to die in vehicle pursuits.”
“All American citizens, all our communities are being impacted by these crimes,” he continued.
He also predicted a huge spike in false asylum claims. “Now our agents are going to have to be processing more women and children, and we’re going to have absolutely no time, no staff, no equipment to go after the real criminal aliens.”
Garza called it “very, very bad for the United States.”
Host Neil Cavuto helped with the messaging. “That’s just a small fraction, those who are seeking the security here in the United States,” he said, before adding that “that’s a multiyear process going through that, and there’s no guarantee they end up showing up when they have to show up, right?”
“They just disappear into the United States,” Garza replied. “They end up getting more and more roots in the U.S., and they will never be deported, especially under a Biden administration that has pretty much decriminalized illegal immigration.”
FACT CHECK: Undocumented immigrants commit much less crime, not more, than the U.S.-born.
You can watch Fox exploit the Supreme Court ruling for political propaganda below, from the June 30, 2022 Your World.
When the DACA program was being tossed by the Pence White House, Roberts noted that Pence had every right to do so, but that he needed to submit the proper paperwork. Pence’s childish former spokesman then made loud noises in public about not needing to do that, so Roberts made clear in the subsequent SC ruling that DACA would not be ended until they did that paperwork.
In the current situation, the bigoted “Remain in Mexico” idea has not yet been halted, as the Biden Administration is waiting to see what now comes from the Pence-appointed judge who initially made this mess by demanding that Biden continue the program. As we discussed, it’s strongly indicated that this judge will of course find another presumed area where ending the bigoted program would somehow violate an existing law, and that the 5th Circuit will uphold the judge and thus keep the program in place.
None of that will happen quickly. I don’t expect to see a new offering from the original judge til the fall, and I wouldn’t expect the 5th Circuit to weigh in again until sometime in the first half of 2023. Meaning that this will not go before the SC in their 22-23 term but rather it will have to wait til the 23-24 term. Meaning that by the time we get their ruling, in June 2 years from now, we’ll be hip deep in the 2024 presidential campaign and even if the program is in fact halted for a few months at that point, the winner of that election could just turn it back on in January 2025.
Most telling about how things will play out when the Supreme Court gets the case is Barrett’s dissent. The heading and first sentence give the entire game away:
“JUSTICE BARRETT, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS, JUSTICE ALITO, and JUSTICE GORSUCH join as to all but the first sen- tence, dissenting.
I agree with the Court’s analysis of the merits—but not with its decision to reach them."
A six to three decision for Biden coming up in the next term. Of course nobody commenting on the decision at Faux has actually read it.
I’m just observing that the Biden/Harris White House will need to wait for that original court to respond before they do anything as the ruling would nullify their action. And if we’re asking the original angry Right Wing judge to determine if any “administrative laws” will be violated, I’ll need to paraphrase famous attorney Vincent Gambini: “I’m sure he’s gonna be more than satisfied that there are administrative laws that will be violated.”
The point is that the SC didn’t tell that judge he couldn’t stop Biden from doing this. They just said he needed to find another rationale. Which thus gives him the room to once again block it this fall, which then sets up a 5th Circuit Appeal for sometime next year, which then sets up another Supreme Court discussion in late 2024. These guys are experts at running out the clock.
It’s unclear if the Biden administration will try to end the program immediately or wait for the lower court to rule.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Biden administration has the right to end a Trump-era immigration policy that forces asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico as their cases make their way through U.S. immigration courts.
In a 5-4 ruling, the justices ruled against Texas and Missouri, which had argued that the Biden administration violated the law by rescinding the program, and sent the case back to the district court to determine if terminating the policy violated any administrative laws.
But the justices determined that the government’s cancellation of the Migrant Protection Protocols, referred to as MPP and also called “remain in Mexico,” did not violate a section of immigration law that Texas and Missouri had used to argue that the Biden administration illegally ended the program.
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/29/supreme-court-migrant-protection-protocols-remain-mexico-biden/
The matter will then return to the 5th Circuit, which will say the judge is absolutely correct, and then the matter will return to the Supreme Court where we will play this game again.
I would not expect that bigoted policy to end anytime soon. It’s more likely that these maneuvers will actually keep it in place until after the 2024 Election – which is the obvious intent.
