Republican bill would ban Biden from instituting ‘Remain in Texas’ policy for undocumented immigrants awaiting potential asylum
Otherwise, asylum seekers would join other Texas residents including all of country singer George Strait’s ex’s.
Context: the border situation
U.S.-Mexico border crossings recently surged to all-time highs.
September 2023 set a new monthly record, with CBP (Customers and Border Protection) reporting 269,735 encounters. The just-concluded fiscal year 2023 also set a new annual record with 2.47 million encounters.
Some of those encounters are asylum seekers, refugees who fear persecution in their home country. USCIS immigration courts aim to make a decision on every asylum application within 180 days of its filing.
During that time period, which can last up to six months, where should the asylum seekers live?
Context: Remain in Mexico
In 2019, President Donald Trump established a policy officially called the Migrant Protection Protocols but nicknamed ‘Remain in Mexico.’ It did exactly what its nickname implies — even for non-Mexican asylum seekers.
Critics contended that, between its violence and cartels, Mexico was too dangerous to send people who were already seeking to escape desperately unsafe situations.
Officially, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador supported the policy — though he didn’t “truly” approve, rather he caved under Trump’s threat to establish tariffs on Mexican products if he didn’t. Once Trump was no longer in office, López Obrador publicly opposed the policy.
President Joe Biden issued an executive order suspending the policy on his first full day in office. Then his Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas officially ended it in June 2021.
A coalition of states led by Texas sued to reinstate it, but in 2022’s Biden v. Texas, the Supreme Court ruled 5–4 in Biden’s favor. Conservatives Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts joined the Court’s three liberals in the decision, with Roberts penning the majority opinion.
Context: ‘Remain in Texas’
With ‘Remain in Mexico’ ended, what should replace it? In September, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Biden administration was considering a variant: ‘Remain in Texas.’
The policy would have been implemented solely for families that crossed the border, not individuals, and would have used electronic monitoring devices such as ankle bracelets.
The proposed policy earned criticism from both the left and the right. Some on the left considered it inhumane, since it would “surveil” asylum seekers and restrict their freedom of travel. The right, particularly from the south or border states, didn’t want undocumented immigrants living in the country even for a temporary period.
In late October, CBS News reported the Biden administration was abandoning the potential policy before it could even be implemented. The final blow was opposition from a key member of the president’s own party: Democratic Mayor Oscar Leeser from the border city of El Paso, where many of the asylum seekers would have been housed.
What the bill does
Still, some Republicans want to prevent Biden’s potential policy from even possibly getting enacted, whether by Biden himself or a potential future president. So they’ve introduced a new bill that would ban federal funding for any ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, forever.
It was introduced in the House as H.R. 6383 on November 13, by Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX13). The bill does not appear to have another, more “official” title.
What supporters say
Supporters argue that East and West Coast politicians often advocate for the U.S. to loosen its border policies, yet don’t want the resulting wave of people in their own backyard.
“Democrat mayors that once relished providing sanctuary cities for illegal aliens are now seeing the pain and destruction open border policies cause, pain Texas has felt for years,” Rep. Jackson said in a press release. (Jackson is referencing the crisis particularly in New York City, where Mayor Eric Adams recently declared his city had “no more room” to house migrants.)
“Texas should not have to bear the burden of liberal border policies that hurt Americans and destroy our way of life,” Rep. Jackson continued. “I will not stand for the hypocrisy of liberal politicians who advocated for sanctuary cities and now want to force illegal immigrants to stay in Texas. They now want ‘someone else’ to deal with the consequences of their radical agenda.”
What opponents say
Opponents counter that the ‘Remain in Texas’ plan would have balanced the twin concerns of national security with humane treatment of asylum seekers — particularly considering the comparatively greater danger they would have faced living in Mexico instead.
In the initial Los Angeles Times article revealing the Biden administration’s proposed plan, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told the publication: “DHS continuously holds policy and operational discussions on how to leverage our authorities to ensure a fair, humane and effective immigration process that efficiently removes those without a lawful basis to stay in the country.”
Ironically, despite Republicans opposing Biden’s potential policy, Republican President Ronald Reagan actually implemented it for a time in the late 1980s. Though attorneys for the refugees sued, the policy’s constitutionality was upheld by a federal district court judge.
Odds of passage
The bill has attracted 28 cosponsors, all Republicans. 25 of the 29 total sponsors are from Texas, comprising the entire Texas Republican congressional delegation.
The four additional cosponsors are all from the south: Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ5), Jeff Duncan (R-SC3), Michael Guest (R-MS3), and Ralph Norman (R-SC5).
It awaits a potential vote in the House Judiciary Committee. Odds of passage are low in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Another similar government program provides modified phones to undocumented immigrants (which can include asylum seekers) while they await the outcome of their cases. In 2022, GovTrack Insider covered the No Phones Act, an unsuccessful Republican bill to halt that program.
So while this specific ‘Remain in Texas’ proposal isn’t ultimately happening, the idea of people staying in the U.S. with surveillance while they’re being assessed is an approach that the federal government used in different ways.
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This article was written by GovTrack Insider staff writer Jesse Rifkin.
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