On Monday, the Biden administration is preparing to reimplement a controversial program for asylum seekers along the border that was originally created by his predecessor, but those participating, including immigration attorneys, volunteers and Border Patrol agents, say there’s “massive amounts of unknowns,” as one attorney put it.
The Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as MPP or Remain in Mexico, a program that forces asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while they wait for their U.S. immigration court hearings, is scheduled to restart Monday.
Although it will eventually include processing through the Brownsville port of entry, it will likely start out west, according to Taylor Levy, an immigration attorney and advocate.
“All we know at this point is that it’s starting in El Paso on Monday,” Levy, an attorney who is part of volunteer networks spanning the southern border, said Saturday.
Under its first iteration in 2019, asylum seekers could present themselves at the bridge, ask for asylum and get placed in long lines sitting on the Mexican side of the bridge.
This time, MPP’s intersection with the pandemic has led to closed international bridges sending asylum seekers to look for other ways into the U.S.
“There’s no legal way to seek asylum,” Levy explained Saturday. “We’re not just trying to make people wait their turn. There is no way for people to wait their turn.”
Currently, many who try to seek asylum are returned to Mexico under a public health authority known as Title 42. Although MPP will be implemented, Title 42 will continue to be applied.
“Title 42 is going to be their first weapon of choice,” Levy said of migrants who enter the country illegally.
Some nationalities will be placed in MPP while others will be returned to Mexico.
“The nationalities who are not accepting claims because of diplomatic relations and because of COVID, primarily Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, those are the nationalities that will be placed most heavily into MPP,” Levy said.
Levy represented many migrants placed under MPP under the Trump administration, but she’s grown frustrated with the Biden administration’s reimplementation of the program they so widely condemned.
She believes migrants will be pushed into making decisions that could come with fatal consequences.
“You have to enter without inspection at this point, which means it continues to be an economic benefit for the cartels and the smugglers,” Levy stressed.
Cartel members and smugglers charge fees to allow migrants to use their routes into the U.S. In return, migrants are given a clave, or password, used as a receipt. So, when migrants are encountered by other cartel members, they can use the password to be spared kidnappings or other violence.
Migrants attempting to circumvent detection are encountered by Border Patrol. The agency reported a record number of encounters during the last fiscal year, a rate they anticipate to continue. In October, they reported about 159,000 encounters compared with 69,000 of the previous October.
Migrants will get placed in MPP after their encounters, a responsibility that may fall on Border Patrol, the agency making the apprehensions.
Yet, Border Patrol sources have not received agency-wide guidance from Customs and Border Protection or the Department of Homeland Security, sources told The Monitor on Saturday.
Guidance was posted on the DHS website on Thursday, however, and they stated internal guidance from CBP, ICE and USCIS should be forthcoming.
Unspecified details and constant tailoring of plans have left many wondering if the program will be implemented on Monday.
In October, administration officials said they planned to start the program in mid-November. National news outlets reported last month the program was expected to start last week.
Most recently, the administration announced through a filed notice of compliance in federal court they would begin MPP at one port of entry on Monday, Dec. 6.
The notice is part of an ongoing lawsuit that prompted the reimplementation of the program.
DHS routinely shared information with nongovernmental organizations working along the border, too, leading up to the reimplementation. Though, details of the plan fluctuated frequently.
On Thursday, DHS certain national news outlets received an email overnight inviting them to a media call held by DHS just hours later.
On the Tamaulipas side, Mexican officials said information changed constantly, too. One point of contention was whether the former encampment site would be reopened in Matamoros, a place that offered makeshift shelter to hundreds of families but was an eyesore for the city, poorly constructed and unsafe.
Some of the changes the administration announced as part of its negotiations with Mexico may be positive for migrants. Transportation will be provided by the International Organization for Migration to Monterrey, far from border violence, Levy said. Officers interviewing migrants will also ask an important question that was left out under the Trump administration.
“CBP officials will proactively ask questions upon initial enrollment to determine whether an individual being considered for enrollment in MPP possess a fear to return to Mexico,” the court filing read.
Levy agreed it was a positive change, but said it will likely not result in an exemption from the program. She worked with Vecino, an organization that represented about 1,400 migrants expelled under Title 42. The migrants received an exemption from the program, as part of an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit agreement. Out of the 1,400 migrants, about 41% of them said they experienced either kidnapping or an attempted kidnapping.
“That first half hour of return to Mexico is the most dangerous point. That first half hour, that first hour, that’s where we see the most kidnappings. We see systematic kidnappings particularly in Tamaulipas, particularly in Nuevo Laredo,” Levy said.
The danger was not limited to migrants.
“I am lucky to be alive,” Levy said, recalling her experiences working with MPP enrollees during 2019 and 2020. “I was earnestly afraid that I was going to be murdered in Mexico for very good reasons and very specific threats made against my life. That’s an unrealistic standard for anyone to expect of immigration attorneys.”
Many organizations and private attorneys have decided not to take on MPP cases. Lawyers face inherent logistical burdens, a lack of malpractice insurance in Mexico, and a lack of clarity on whether they are barred properly to work in Mexico, Levy explained.
Ready or not, once the program starts at one port of entry, the administration announced they intend to expand to San Diego, Calexico, Nogales, Eagle Pass, Laredo and Brownsville.
