Following a lawsuit from Texas and Missouri, the Biden administration told courts late on Thursday that it will reimplement the Trump-era "Remain in Mexico" policy in Mid-November.
According to court documents, the policy will require migrants seeking asylum to wait in Mexico for their U.S. immigration court hearings.
The suit filed by Texas and Missouri argued that the Biden administration removed the policy too soon, as the U.S. transported 70,000 asylum-seekers to Mexico to await a determination in their case.
The suit has been appealed by the Department of Homeland Security, who is also working on a memo to rescind the program anew, The Hill reported.
The Biden administration has been meeting with high-level officials from the Mexican government now that the policy is returning.
"Mexico is a sovereign nation that must make an independent decision to accept the return of individuals without status in Mexico as part of any reimplementation of MPP. Discussions with the Government of Mexico concerning when and how MPP will be reimplemented are ongoing," DHS said in a statement Thursday.
The court filing showed that Mexico is concerned with how the program was previously implemented and that officials are working to implement it again with Mexico's blessing, as they now have a say in how it is amended.
President Biden ended that policy when he took office this year, saying it was inhumane because of the violence migrants faced waiting in Mexico for their court hearings, NBC News reported.
The lawsuit to return the program, formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, was initially filed in April. However, in August, a federal judge in Texas ordered the Biden administration to put the policy back in place, pending the suit's outcome.
The administration fought the order but lost in federal appeals court and the Supreme Court.
Now, according to senior administration officials, immigrants will get court dates set no more than six months in the future and will attend hearings with immigration judges in one of 10 courts to be set up near Brownsville and Laredo, Texas.
If the Biden administration wins the lawsuit filed by Texas and Missouri, the policy would be again put on hold.
The policy was first started in January 2019 and created a population boom in migrant camps on the Mexican side of the border, with immigrants not being allowed to enter the country.
Human rights organizations documented hundreds of kidnappings, rapes, and assaults of migrants who were waiting for their asylum hearings.
