Judge suspends Biden administration's termination of "Remain in Mexico" border policy

Washington — A federal judge in Texas on Thursday suspended the Biden administration's termination of a Trump-era program that required certain migrants to await their asylum hearings in Mexico, though the concrete impact of the ruling on U.S. border policy was not immediately clear.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk paused an October 2021 memo by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that terminated the so-called "Remain in Mexico" policy, which was first implemented by the Trump administration in early 2019 to deter migration to the U.S. southern border.

In a similar ruling last year, Kacsmaryk ordered the Biden administration to reinstate the Remain in Mexico program, prompting border officials to revive the policy on a limited scale for eight months before the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Department of Homeland Security to terminate the rule this summer.