USA: Supreme Court buries contested Trump immigration decree

The US Supreme Court on Thursday (June 30) ruled in favor of Joe Biden, who had canceled a disputed immigration decree by ex-President Donald Trump to send asylum seekers arrested at the border back to Mexico during the examination of their file. .

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By a very small majority (5 to 4), the judges ruled that stopping the automatic removal of migrants to Mexico did not violate US immigration law.

The measure, dubbed "

", was implemented in 2019 when the United States recorded an influx of refugees at the border with Mexico.

It had been widely criticized by civil rights associations, when President Trump had made the fight against illegal immigration one of the markers of his policy.

Against immigration law

The end of this measure was announced in February 2021, just a few weeks after Joe Biden took office, then implemented in June.

But two states, Texas and Missouri, had challenged the decision in court, which ruled in their favor, finding that ending the provision was against immigration law, requiring law enforcement to release arrested migrants due to lack of space in detention centres.

The decision was upheld by an appeals court.

The government then reviewed its copy, at the end of October 2021, taking into account the judicial decisions, then seized the High Court.

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The latter therefore considered Thursday that the decree of the Minister of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas issued in October did not violate immigration law and replaced the precedent which had been attacked by the two States.

Every year, tens of thousands of Central and Latin American migrants seek to reach the United States, fleeing violence and poverty in their countries, and several hundred lose their lives there.

On Monday, an overheated and overloaded truck was found in San Antonio, Texas: among its passengers, 53 people died, one of the worst immigration dramas in the United States.