The United States Supreme Court ruled that the Biden administration can reverse a controversial program that requires asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their cases are reviewed in U.S. courts. The Biden administration sought to end the Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) last year, but was blocked by a lower court judge, who said that the administration had not provided sufficient justification for ending it and that its procedures were unlawful. (Washington Post, New York Times)

Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, in Amarillo, ruled last year that immigration laws required returning noncitizens seeking asylum to Mexico whenever the federal government lacked the resources to detain them. The Supreme Court refused to block the ruling, forcing the Biden administration to restart the program.

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Known as “Remain in Mexico,” the policy subjects asylum seekers to dangerous conditions, where they are vulnerable to rape and torture, and complicating their legal proceedings in the United States, according to officials and immigration advocates. Homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, said the program imposes “unjustifiable human costs” and does “not address the root causes of irregular migration.” (Guardian)

Yesterday’s majority decision found that while Biden “may” return migrants to the country they came from, he is not required to do so. Chief Justice Roberts added that making removal mandatory would require ordering the president to negotiate with Mexico. Judges should not lightly interfere with the president’s ability to conduct foreign policy, he wrote.

The victory is likely to be hollow for the Biden administration, however, according to Vox. While SCOTUS sided with the government on the issue of whether federal immigration law requires a Remain-in-Mexico-style policy (it doesn’t), the justices send the case back down to Kacsmaryk to resolve a few other lingering questions, which could prolong the Biden administration’s inability to reform migration policy.

News Briefs

Ecuador

• Ecuador’s government and the country’s main Indigenous group have reached an agreement yesterday, which includes a decrease in the price of fuel and other concessions. The deal ends 18 days of a strike that had virtually paralyzed the country, at least four people died in clashes with security forces. (Associated Press)
  
  
• The agreement also sets limits to the expansion of oil exploration areas and prohibits mining activity in protected areas, national parks and water sources. (Associated Press)

Regional

• Protests in Ecuador appear to be Latin America’s first major political upheaval linked to the current gas and food inflation, but they are unlikely to be the region’s last, writes Catherine Osborn in the Latin America Brief, pointing to protests in Argentina and Peru.
  
  
• A fragile consensus around mining and oil exploration seems to be fraying in the region, as leftist leaders’ supporters are increasingly concerned about climate change and environmental impacts, even as the income from extractivist industries is more necessary than ever to finance social programs, reports Americas Quarterly.
  
  
• Central American leaders have avoided criticizing the Ortega-Murillo regime in Nicaragua — in part because they are loathe to oxygenate criticism of corruption and human rights violations in their own countries, but also because of the financing potential of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, reports El Faro.

Honduras

• Honduras’ new government should enact reforms to better protect basic rights and the rule of law after years of setbacks since the 2009 coup, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to President Xiomara Castro, accompanied by a new report.

Brazil

• Illicit industries of fishing, logging and mining have proliferated in Brazil’s Javari valley in the past decade, and the area forms part of Brazil’s second largest drug trafficking route, reports the Guardian.
  
  
• Climate-change induced increases in rainfall have combined to deadly effect with north-eastern Brazil’s housing deficits, reports the Economist.

Mexico

• President Andrés Manuel López Obrador promised to change Mexico’s militarized approach to the war on drugs when he took office in 2018. But under his purview, security forces have received more funding and have rarely been punished for accused abuses of power, reports Foreign Policy.
  
  
• After a decade of rapid expansion, the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación is showing the same signs of wear that foreshadowed the downfall of its many predecessors, reports InSight Crime.

Colombia

• A Colombian paramilitary drug lord knonw “Memo Fantasma” may soon get out of jail, after the prosecutor fumbled two hearings designed to keep the accused in pre-trial detention, reports InSight Crime.
  
  
• Over 80,000 people remain disappeared from Colombia’s civil war. NACLA profiles Search Bloc, a group of mostly women, many former FARC fighters, who search for answers in the very conflict zones they once fought in.

Peru

• Peruvian President Pedro Castillo promised leftist reform. But his incompetency has left his country’s democracy on its last legs, argues Simeon Tegel in Foreign Policy.
  
  
• A forest fire near Machu Picchu has raged since Tuesday, and firefighters have been hampered in efforts to put it out due to difficulties accessing the area. (Guardian)

Argentina

• Argentina’s Supreme Court denied celebrity Natalia Denegri’s petition to have content about a scandal she was involved in more than 25 years ago removed from search engines, arguing the fell within the public interest. It is the first ruling by a Supreme Court in Latin America on the “right to be forgotten,” reports Rest of World.
  

Haiti Haiti’s educated youth are leaving the country as fast as they can, an accelerating brain drain of migrants that often go through Latin America en route to the U.S., reports the Miami Herald. A recent national survey by the country’s Citizen Observatory for Institutionalization of Democracy found that 82% of Haiti’s nearly 12 million people would migrate if they had the chance.

Jordana Timerman/Latin America Daily Briefing
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