The following is a statement from Douglas Rivlin, Director of Communication for America’s Voice, reacting to the Supreme Court’s ruling on MPP or “Remain in Mexico”:
Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision on MPP – called by Vox legal analyst Ian Millhiser a ‘stunning, radical’ decision that, ‘upends decades of precedent warning that judges shouldn’t mess with foreign affairs’ – is an outrageous decision that will endanger lives.
The Supreme Court, and larger right wing judicial pipeline, is trying to force the Biden Administration to adopt Trump’s cruel, chaotic, and dehumanizing policies. Remain in Mexico or MPP was about inflicting intentional harm in a failed act of deterrence in violation of U.S. law, international treaty and American values. Remain in Mexico should not be resuscitated, reinstated or reformed, it should be rescinded, reviled and relegated to the dustbin of history.
An updated report from Human Rights First released yesterday reminds us of the real consequences of returning to these policies and forcing people to remain in dangerous conditions. The report finds ‘at least 6,356 kidnappings, sexual assaults, and other violent attacks against people blocked at ports of entry or expelled to Mexico by DHS since President Biden took office.’ Reinstating MPP would add to this toll and subject new lives to danger.
In light of the SCOTUS’s radical ruling to re-embrace cruelty and chaos, the Biden administration should find a way to end this policy in a manner that passes muster with the vague and twisted logic of the District Court’s ruling, while ensuring that we never again go back to the cruelty, chaos, and devastation that has already had such a demonstrated human toll.
