The Biden administration has announced that it will give a second chance to the cases of asylum-seekers who were forced by the previous administration to wait in Mexico for their U.S. immigration hearings, but then missed those court dates for reasons that included being the victims of kidnapping and other violence, CBS News reports. 

The exact number of asylum-seekers who can again seek protections is not yet clear, with The Washington Post reporting anywhere from at least 10,000 people, to just under 35,000 people. What is clear is that this is a victory for asylum-seekers and their advocates, who had been urging the administration to give people affected by the now-terminated Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), or Remain in Mexico policy, a meaningful chance at seeking relief.

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“This welcome step will provide access to asylum for MPP victims who were unable to attend hearings in this flawed process, in many cases due to acute dangers, kidnappings or other impediments,” said Human Rights First senior director of refugee protection Eleanor Acer. The Post in April reported on one asylum-seeker’s harrowing story of being kidnapped on her way to her immigration court date in February 2020. Because she wasn’t there through no fault of her own, her case was closed in absentia.

Other asylum-seekers horrifyingly experienced their children being kidnapped due to the policy. “In another case, a woman explained to the immigration judge at her February 2020 court hearing in Laredo that her 17-year-old son was not in court with her and the rest of their family because he had been kidnapped by members of a cartel,” Human Rights Watch said in a January 2021 report. The boy was ordered deported. “This boy had been taken by a cartel because the US government sent him back to Nuevo Laredo,” Human Rights Watch attorney Alysha Welsh said in the report.

CBS News reports that more than 27,000 asylum-seekers were ordered deported because they weren’t in court. ”Those who are eligible to enter the U.S. have to register online through the United Nations refugee agency to receive an appointment to be admitted at selected ports of entry along the southern border,” the report continued. 

“As part of our continued effort to restore safe, orderly, and humane processing at the Southwest Border, DHS will expand the pool of MPP-enrolled individuals who are eligible for processing into the United States,” a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson said according to Courthouse News Service. “Beginning June 23, 2021, DHS will include MPP enrollees who had their cases terminated or were ordered removed in absentia (i.e., individuals ordered removed while not present at their hearings). DHS will continue to process for entry into the United States MPP enrollees with pending proceedings.”

Advocates stressed concern that the Biden administration’s expanded eligibility still excluded “a significant portion of the MPP population, including asylum-seekers ‘forced to return to the danger of their home countries,’ ‘and those who followed the rules and attended every court hearing,’” FWD.us president Todd Schulte said in a statement received by Daily Kos. One U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services asylum officer who in 2019 resigned rather than help implement this policy said it was “clearly designed to make individuals fail.”

That same year, data showed an abysmal asylum approval rate for people enrolled in the program. “It has been almost a year since the government began sending asylum seekers back to Mexico and only 11 people have been granted asylum,” the Los Angeles Times reported in December 2019. “That accounts for a grant rate of less than one percent.” While advocates continue to push for asylum-seekers unjustly denied a fair chance at protections, the Biden administration’s decision nevertheless represents a major step forward in restoring and repairing our nation’s asylum system. Now, let’s get rid of Title 42. 

“One of the main reasons many people missed court was due to insecurity and danger in Mexico,” American Immigration Council policy counsel Aaron Reichlin-Melnick told Courthouse News Service. “We know that hundreds if not thousands were kidnapped by the cartels in Mexico. There are dozens of documented cases of people who were in a cartel homes, held by their kidnappers and held for ransom at the time when an immigration judge ordered them removed from court.”