Report: DHS to readmit illegal immigrants ousted under Trump

Homeland Security will allow some illegal immigrants ousted under the Trump administration to reenter the U.S and renew their cases, according to a news report Tuesday.

CBS News said the policy will apply to people who had showed up at the border, made asylum claims that got funneled into the so-called “Remain in Mexico” program, were pushed back across the boundary to wait for their immigration hearings, but then failed to show for those hearings.

They will now be allowed to come into the U.S. and begin their claims again.

Congressional Democrats who oversee Homeland Security cheered the policy.

“Too many people were denied their right to due process and rejected for entry into the United States under the abhorrent ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy,” said Reps. Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi and Nanette Barragan of California.

The two Democrats who, respectively, chair the Homeland Security Committee and its subcommittee on border security said the Trump policy discouraged people from showing up for their hearings, and they deserve a chance to make their cases.

Immigrant-rights activists have been pressuring the Biden administration to find ways not only to roll back Trump policies, but to bring back people deported during the Trump era.

The new move doesn’t go that far, but it is a step in that direction.

Tens of thousands of people were pushed into the “Remain in Mexico” program, which takes advantage of a portion of U.S. law that allows people who show up without permission to be ordered back across the border to wait while their immigration cases proceed.

Trump officials said the logic was to deny people with bogus cases a foothold in the U.S., which many abused by disappearing into the shadows while their claims were being judged. Indeed, the policy worked in solving the 2019 border surge, according to Border Patrol agents.

But immigrant-rights activists said the human costs were too high: Many illegal immigrants ended up in camps on the Mexican side where they became targets for extortion or other abuse by smuggling cartels. Many also tried to jump the border again.