President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is ending former President Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program despite its huge success in eliminating asylum fraud by border crossers and illegal aliens hoping to stay in the United States.
First started by Trump in 2019, the Remain in Mexico program sought to eliminate asylum fraud and end the practice known as “Catch and Release” where border crossers and illegal aliens are briefly apprehended before being released into the U.S. interior while they await their future asylum hearings.
The program required border crossers and illegal aliens to wait in Mexico for their asylum hearings in the U.S. after their arrival at the southern border — ensuring they were not simply released into American communities with the hope that they would show up to their hearings.
After the Supreme Court and a lower court ruled that the Biden administration could end Remain in Mexico, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that the agency would move forward with plans to eliminate the program.
“Individuals are no longer being newly enrolled into [Remain in Mexico], and individuals currently in [Remain in Mexico] in Mexico will be disenrolled when they return for their next scheduled court date,” a DHS news release states.
Biden is ending the program despite its success.
The latest data shows that of the more than 45,000 Remain in Mexico cases adjudicated since 2019, less than 740 migrants have been found to have legitimate asylum claims to remain in the U.S.
This indicates that only 1.6 percent of Remain in Mexico migrants end up having valid asylum claims to stay in the U.S. Meanwhile, more than 71 percent of migrants have been ordered deported after failing to show they have legitimate asylum claims. Another more than 23 percent of migrants terminated their asylum proceedings.
Mayorkas, though, continues to claim that Remain in Mexico “has endemic flaws, imposes unjustifiable human costs, and pulls resources and personnel away from other priority efforts to secure our border.”
The end of Remain in Mexico comes even as Biden’s own officials have warned that doing so is likely to spur another flood of illegal immigration to the southern border.
As the Wall Street Journal reported, Biden’s “National Security Council officials have cited … that they are concerned that the publicity around ending the program could attract more people to cross the border illegally…”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.