The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to a request from the Biden government to remove two immigration-related cases from its upcoming calendar because it was no longer necessary due to policy changes by the new government.
In a brief order, the Supreme Court agreed to the request to remove the cases from its forthcoming oral argument calendar.
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“The order is granted to hold further briefings and remove the cases from the February 2021 calendar of arguments,” the order reads.
The first case, Biden v. Sierra Club, relates to the construction of the wall on the southern border and whether the Trump administration had the authority to transfer $ 2.5 billion in military funds to fund the project based on a ‘national emergency statement ‘.
About 450 miles of wall was built under President Donald Trump, with another about 350 additional miles.
But Biden, who promised to strike the wall if elected, stopped building the wall last week so he could assess the validity of the financing, contracting methods and the consequences of the strike on the projects.
The second case removed from the calendar by the court – Pekoske (Wolf) v. Innovation Law Lab – involving Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). The policy, known as the Remain-in-Mexico policy, sends migrants back to Mexico while they await their immigration hearings rather than being released in the US.
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Critics call the policy cruel and inhumane, while the Trump administration has argued that it is essential to end ‘capture and release’ and remove the pull factors that migrants bring to the US. More than 60,000 migrants were returned under the policy.
The administration has appealed the lower court’s rulings declaring the policy invalid. But Biden promised to end MPP and on Tuesday signed an order to review the program and DHS to determine whether the policy should be changed or terminated.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan indicated that the government still wanted to end the program, but warned that it would ‘take time’.
“MPP has been a disaster from the beginning and has led to a humanitarian crisis in northern Mexico. But the implementation of the new policy will take time,” he said in December. “The current administration has demolished a large part of the necessary capacity to ensure the safe and orderly processing of migrants. We need time to increase the processing capacity and to do so in accordance with the requirements for public health.”
The withdrawal of cases is the latest step by the Biden government to move quickly away from the Trump era over immigration policy. Biden on Tuesday signed orders that would set up a task force to reunite families separated from his predecessor and review other Trump policies.
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“I’m not proposing new legislation, but eliminating the bad policies,” said Biden of the Oval Office. “What I do is address the issues that 99% of them that the last President of the United States issued executive orders that I think were very counterproductive to our security, and counterproductive to who we are as a country, especially in the field of immigration. “
He also ended the travel ban on the Trump era and strengthened the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood (DACA) program that Trump wanted to end – but was rejected by the Supreme Court.