Trump Responds to Biden Admin Ending Key ‘Remain in Mexico’ Policy

Then-President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden in file photographs. (AP Photo; Getty Images)

Former President Donald Trump offered a critical response to the Biden administration officially ending his Migrant Protection Protocols policy that directed illegal immigrants and some asylum-seekers to stay in Mexico while awaiting their court date.

Trump said on June 2 that his 2019 directive, sometimes known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, was a “historic foreign policy triumph,” and was among the “most successful border security programs” devised in recent memory.

“Along with our Central America Safe Third agreements, asylum reforms, and expedited removal procedures we drove border numbers to record lows and we ENDED the horrendous practice known as Catch-and-Release,” Trump said.

On Feb. 2, President Joe Biden called on agencies responsible for enforcing immigration rules to review the protocol and consider its termination. On June 2, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officially terminated the policy, months after Biden suspended it.

In a memo, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas instructed employees that the agency will no longer be enforcing the mandate and asserted that it didn’t “adequately or sustainably enhance border management.”

“Biden is the first American President who doesn’t want America to be a nation at all,” Trump said, regarding the termination of the Migrant Protection Protocols and a slew of other recent executive orders.

The former Republican commander-in-chief also appeared to dispute statements from Biden, Mayorkas, and other White House officials who have claimed they inherited a broken immigration system. During a press conference in March, Biden defended his administration’s policies, and alleged the current surge of illegal immigrants along the border “happens every single solitary year” and that “nothing has changed,” while claiming that the Migrant Protection Protocols wouldn’t stop the flow of people arriving at the border.

But Biden, Trump said, “inherited the most secure border in history, and they turned it into the greatest border disaster in history.” He also said the U.S.–Mexico border is now “run by cartels, criminals, and coyotes.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in April that there were 172,000 encounters between Border Patrol agents and illegal immigrants in March, including nearly 19,000 unaccompanied minors, or children who illegally entered the country without an adult.

An adviser to Trump confirmed that the former president’s “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump” platform was taken down and won’t be returning. Trump’s statement about the Migrant Protection Protocols was released through his Save America PAC.

Trump aide Jason Miller told The Hill and other news outlets on June 2 that the “Desk” was “auxiliary to the broader efforts we have and are working on.

“Hoping to have more information on the broader efforts soon, but I do not have a precise awareness of timing,” Miller said, according to CNBC.

The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.