President Joe Biden says Mexico should take back “all” migrant families arriving at the United States-Mexico border, more than two months after he ended the “Remain in Mexico” program that returned migrants to the other side of the border.
During a press conference Thursday, Biden suggested all migrant families arriving at the southern border should be returned to Mexico — a commitment former President Trump put into practice by implementing the Remain in Mexico program.
“What about dealing with families? Why are some not going back? Because Mexico is refusing to take them back,” Biden said. “They’re saying they won’t take them back, not all of them.”
“We’re in negotiations with the President of Mexico and I think we’re going to see that change. They should all be going back, all be going back,” Biden continued.
Pro-migration activists and attorneys were taken off guard by the remark.
The statement comes after Biden ended Trump’s Remain in Mexico program that accomplished just that — keeping migrant families with asylum claims in Mexico while they awaited their court dates in the U.S.
Remain in Mexico was so effective in weeding out asylum fraud that of the more than 71,000 asylum cases, less than one percent of migrants were found to have a legitimate asylum claim.
Instead of keeping the program in place, Biden ended the operation on his first day in office. The result has been a surge of illegal immigration to the U.S. as migrants understand their likelihood of claiming asylum and being released into the nation’s interior is high.
Now, the migrants enrolled in Remain in Mexico are being released into the U.S. interior. As of the first week of March, the Biden administration had released about 1,000 Remain in Mexico migrants into the U.S. interior.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.