On Tuesday evening, Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef) asked a federal court to halt the Trump administration’s plan to restart the Remain in Mexico policy “immediately.” First implemented in 2019, this policy forced people seeking asylum to await their U.S. immigration court dates in perilous conditions in Mexico. The motion requesting an emergency stay was filed in Immigrant Defenders Law Center et al. v. Noem, a federal class action lawsuit challenging ongoing harms resulting from the first incarnation of Remain in Mexico. In 2023 a federal judge found that the policy likely amounted to "acute and sweeping violations” of the “bedrock rights" of ImmDef and its co-plaintiffs.
In the motion filed on Tuesday, ImmDef, a nonprofit immigration legal services provider based in Los Angeles, argues that restarting the Remain in Mexico policy will undermine its efforts to provide legal assistance to immigrants and refugees in and around Southern California—in violation of its rights under the First Amendment and U.S. immigration law. The organization is asking the court to delay the resumption of Remain in Mexico until it determines whether the policy is lawful as implemented.
Under the first iteration of the Remain in Mexico policy, nearly 70,000 people were deprived of a fair opportunity to seek asylum. Stranded in Mexico, a mere 10 percent of asylum seekers subject to the policy were able to find legal representation. Many people fell prey to grave violence at the hands of organized criminal groups. Conditions were so dangerous that some asylum seekers were abducted en route to their hearings and ordered deported in absentia. Just 1.1 percent were ultimately granted relief. ImmDef and other legal services providers were forced to travel across the border to meet with clients in Mexico, drastically reducing their case capacity, imposing significant financial costs, and putting their staff at great personal risk. When the government terminated Remain in Mexico in 2021, it acknowledged the policy’s “substantial and unjustifiable human costs,” as well as its inefficiency.
“The U.S. government previously halted the Remain in Mexico program because of its ‘endemic flaws’ and its devastating impact on human beings seeking protection from persecution,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, ImmDef President and CEO. “By severely limiting access to attorneys and forcing vulnerable individuals to wait for their immigration hearings on the other side of the border under dangerous conditions, the policy undermines the right to asylum, erodes due process, and puts people's lives in jeopardy. Make no mistake—Remain in Mexico is an unlawful violation of both domestic and international law and should not be allowed to resume in any shape or form.”
ImmDef is represented in this case by the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS), Innovation Law Lab, and National Immigration Project.
“Remain in Mexico was a deeply shameful chapter in the first Trump administration,” said Melissa Crow, Director of Litigation at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS). “The policy was a humanitarian and due process disaster, exposing vulnerable families, children, and adults to horrific violence, while sabotaging the efforts of groups like ImmDef striving to provide some semblance of due process to their clients.”
“The Remain in Mexico policy was cruel and unlawful when it was implemented in 2019, and it is cruel and unlawful now,” said Tess Hellgren, Director of Legal Advocacy at Innovation Law Lab. “We will continue fighting in court to defend the uniform right to seek asylum.”
"The so-called Migrant Protection Protocols were designed to force asylum seekers to give up their claims by making them wait in dangerous conditions in Mexico and denying them access to counsel,” said National Immigration Project Supervising Attorney Victoria Neilson. “The program is a human rights travesty and has already inflicted immense suffering on thousands of vulnerable families. We are asking the court to prevent the administration from restarting this cruel and illegal program and ensure that the United States upholds its legal and moral obligations to those seeking safety.”