The Supreme Court has accepted the request of the administration chaired by Joe Biden to withdraw the cases promoted by the administration of former President Donald Trump over the border wall and the policy of Stay in Mexico from the arguments calendar scheduled for February, as indicated Wednesday the informative website SCOTUSblog.
The Justice Department on Monday asked the Supreme Court to cancel the review of these two controversial measures, which have been challenged in court, as Biden has taken steps to annul them.
Acting Attorney General Elizabeth Prelogar applied to the highest court from the calendar and suspend additional procedures related to the legal defense of the border wall construction and the Stay in Mexico asylum seekers program.
The issue of the border wall was to be discussed on Feb. 22, and the case of Stay in Mexico, which forced asylum seekers to wait for their hearings on the Mexican side of the border, would be heard a week later, on March 1.
The request to strike the defense of the cases reflects the change of course of the new government on immigration and border security.
Stopping the wall project was one of the first steps Biden took when he took office. “It will be my government’s policy to stop diverting dollars from US taxpayers to build a border wall,” he said in a proclamation signed Jan. 20.
Another change the incoming government made was to request the Department of Homeland Security from sSpend the policy of returning asylum seekers from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala to Mexico’s northern border, instead of allowing them to wait in the United States to handle their cases.
From the end of January 2019 until the program was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, over 68,700 people were sent back to Mexico under what the government called the Migrant Protection Protocols.
A federal appeals court ruled last June that the government had falsely deducted $ 2.5 billion from the Pentagon’s anti-drug program to build a boundary wall of more than 100 miles. The court said only Congress could approve such a transfer.
With information from NBC News and The Associated Press.