The asylum system exists because international law — the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, which the US signed — requires countries not to return asylum seekers to places where they face persecution. "Remain in Mexico" operationally evaded this requirement by returning asylum seekers not to their home countries but to Mexico — which the administration argued was sufficient "safe" territory, despite documentation that Mexican cartel activity specifically targeted migrants. The legal challenge was that the US was knowingly sending asylum seekers into documented danger.
Human Rights First's database of reported attacks on people returned to Mexico under MPP documented specific incidents across all the border cities where migrants were required to wait: kidnappings of entire families, rapes in migrant camps, murders of people whose asylum claims were in process. The Matamoros migrant camp — a large informal settlement of asylum seekers waiting to appear before US immigration courts just across the border from Brownsville, Texas — was repeatedly targeted by cartel violence. US immigration officials could see the camp from the US side of the border. The people in it had filed legal asylum claims. US law required those claims to be processed. The "Remain in Mexico" policy put them in harm's way while that processing took months or years.
This post distinguishes between documented facts, allegations, and analysis. Where motive, intent, corruption, or illegality remains disputed in the public record, the text attributes that judgment to court findings, official records, direct quotes, or the reporting linked below.
The camps that formed in Mexican border cities were documented in detail by journalists and humanitarian organizations. In Matamoros — across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas — thousands of asylum seekers lived in tents along the riverbank, visible from the US side, while their legal cases were processed in US immigration courts they could not physically reach without endangering themselves. They had to cross back into the US for their court hearings, then return to Mexico. Attorneys representing them often had to travel to Mexico to meet with their clients. The practical obstacles to building a legal case for asylum while living in a violent cartel-controlled border city were severe — many asylum seekers gave up and abandoned their claims, which was precisely the intended effect of the policy.
The Biden administration's termination of MPP on Day One was challenged by Texas and Missouri in court. A federal judge in Texas ordered the Biden administration to reinstate the program while litigation continued — a ruling that demonstrated how thoroughly MPP had been embedded in immigration enforcement infrastructure. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled in 2022 that the Biden administration had the authority to end MPP. Trump reinstated it on his first day back in office in 2025. The cycle — implement, terminate, reinstate, litigate — has kept thousands of asylum seekers in legal limbo in Mexican border cities throughout.
- Human Rights First — "Delivered to Danger" reports; 1,500+ documented attacks on people returned to Mexico under MPP; database available at humanrightsfirst.org.
- Human Rights Watch — MPP reports 2019-2021; specific incidents and legal analysis.
- Policy implementation — January 25, 2019; DHS announcement.
- Biden termination — January 20, 2021 executive order suspending MPP.
- Supreme Court — Biden v. Texas (2022); allowed termination.
- Trump second-term reinstatement — January 20, 2025 executive order.