Migrant Protection Protocol (MPP) policy was implemented in January by the Trump administration directed at immigrants at the U.S. southern border. The new MPP program sends migrants who enter the U.S. illegally, or who appear at official places of entry along the U.S. border seeking asylum, to return to Mexico to await an American court date. Immigrants claiming asylum under MPP policies must come and go across the border under U.S. custody to attend their hearings the courts in the program, located in San Diego and Texas. Prior to MPP, most of these migrants were released to inside the U.S. to wait for a court date.
a U.S. immigration official told a group of congressional staffers that the program had “broken the courts,” according to two participants and contemporaneous notes taken by one of them. The official said that the court in El Paso at that point was close to running out of space for paper files, according to the attendees, who requested anonymity because the meeting was confidential.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) estimates that 42,000 migrants had been sent to wait in Mexico through early September. According to the Wall Street Journal, the return-to-Mexico policy is overwhelming immigration Courts:
Only about 1% of migrants in MPP hearings have an attorney… A. Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, said her members are being told to hear 80 to 100 MPP cases in a session that lasts a few hours.
The WSJ reports that Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan said the MPP program offers asylum seekers a chance at a much faster resolution of their case so they don’t have to wait in limbo in the U.S. “Instead of a five-year process or more, we can see results in a matter of months.”
Immigration attorneys Mario Godoy of Godoy Law Office in Chicago and Lombard can help you with your immigration case. If you need help with an immigration issue, please contact our office or call us at 855-554-6369.
