In January 2019, the Trump Administration implemented a new program called the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP 1.0)—often referred to as the “Remain in Mexico” program. Under MPP 1.0, the U.S. government required asylum seekers entering at the southern border to be returned to Mexico during the pendency of their asylum proceedings. The program was used to send over 68,000 migrants, including thousands of children and families, to dangerous and inhumane conditions in Mexico to await asylum hearings rife with due process issues. 

In 2020, the federal appeals court for the 9th Circuit held that the program was illegal. The Supreme Court granted the Trump Administration’s petition for review and put the injunction on hold as it considered the case, leaving the policy in place until the Biden administration terminated it. Following the termination, the Supreme Court sent the case back to the district court, which vacated the injunction as moot. The Remain in Mexico program was “reinstated” in 2021 as the result of an injunction issued in a lawsuit brought by Texas and other states which was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court. The reinstated program (MPP 2.0) returned over 7000 people to Mexico from December 2021 to August 2022.  After President Trump took office again in 2025, the Department of Homeland Security announced on January 21, 2025, that MPP would be put back into effect for a third time.

In January 2021, the Young Center, along with partners, filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court which employed a storytelling approach to highlight the specific harm to children as a result of the policy, including MPP’s failure to provide for procedural safeguards to prevent the non-refoulement of children. In September 2021, the Young Center filed a similar amicus brief in State of Texas v. Biden in the 5th Circuit, this time in support of the government’s decision to terminate the so-called Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as the Remain in Mexico policy.

More about the case can be found on the ACLU’s website.

• Young Center (with partner organizations) Amicus Brief
   Filed 1/22/21
• Young Center (with partner organizations) Amicus Brief
    Filed 9/27/21