The Biden Administration was forced to re-implement Migrant Protection Protocols, more commonly referred to as “Remain in Mexico,” after the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling ordering the Biden Administration to re-implement the policy “in good faith.”

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the Trump administration reached an agreement with the Mexican government that U.S. Border Patrol would send most Mexican, Guatemalan, Honduran, and Salvadoran asylum seekers to Mexico to wait for their asylum cases to be adjudicated. The Trump administration relied heavily on Section 265 of U.S. Code Title 42, which enables the Director of the CDC to “prohibit… the introduction” of individuals the director believes creates a “serious danger of the introduction of a [a communicable] disease into the United States.”

Under this policy, the Trump administration returned approximately 70,000 migrants over the border to a holding area in Mexico.

However, the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy was not just re-instated after the Supreme Court ruling; the Biden Administration expanded the policy more than the court required, enraging immigration advocates across the country. The U.S. government will now provide transportation to and from the border, establish tent courts near the border, offer COVID-19 vaccines, and process all claims within six months. The biggest outrage, however, is that the Biden Administration voluntarily expanded the program beyond just the Northern Triangle countries; it now includes the entire Western Hemisphere.

Critics of the newly expanded enforcement of Remain in Mexico argue that international and domestic laws prohibit this practice from taking place. Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed in 1948, states that “everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.” However, by instituting these harsh entry requirements on all Western Hemisphere states, the United States is side-stepping its responsibilities under this international covenant.

Furthermore, under Article 33 of the Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, the United States is obligated to abide by the “non-refoulment” rule, which states that “No contracting state shall expel or return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened.” Critics argue that returning migrants to Mexico is in direct contrast to this Article 33 provision, as asylum seekers are even more vulnerable while they wait for their cases to be adjudicated.

The U.S. Refugee Act of 1980, Public Law 96-212 does give the U.S. government some leeway, however. The opening paragraphs of the law state that it is “the policy of the United States to encourage all nations to provide assistance and resettlement opportunities to refugees to the fullest extent possible,” taking some of the responsibility off its shoulders. But it is difficult to see this as the reason for re-initiating the law, as Mexico has stated they will not take more than 10% of the asylum-seeking population from any one country, a policy that the United States has refused to acknowledge.

Earlier this week, a tractor-trailer carrying over 100 migrants crashed in the southern city of Chiapas, Mexico. Mexican officials reported that 54 were killed, 19 of whom were minors. These tractor-trailers are not an anomaly. Smugglers try to bypass checkpoints set up by Mexican officials that are almost always bound for the United States. Currently, Mexico’s rate of apprehension for migrants trying to make the trek to the United States has risen to its highest number in Mexico’s history, at roughly 228,000 migrants.