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FIRST ON FOX: A group of House Republicans is trying to codify Stay in Mexicoa cornerstone of President-elect Donald Trump’s border policy during his first term.
Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, a first-term lawmaker, is leading the effort that was first shared with Fox News Digital on Thursday.
His bill would require the Department of Homeland Security to restore protocols to protect migrants, better known as staying in Mexico.
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President-elect Donald Trump speaks at the US-Mexico border on August 22, 2024. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
“The American people gave President Trump and the Republicans a mandate to secure the border, and Congress must pass the Stay in Mexico Act as the first step in securing our border and fixing the problems that Democrats they created in our country,” Gill told Fox News Digital.
The policy, which Trump implemented in January 2019, required migrants seeking asylum at the southwest border of the United States to wait for their immigration procedures in Mexico.
A federal judge had stopped the Biden administration to stop the program, but officials stopped using it for new cases in mid-2022.
President Biden had campaigned to end the policy, which rights groups and left-wing organizations had criticized as cruel and inhumane, given allegations of rape and other crimes migrants had suffered while waiting in Mexico.
The American Civil Liberties Union previously said of the policy: “The stay-in-Mexico policy, misleadingly called the ‘Migrant Protection Protocols’ created a humanitarian disaster at the border and has been the subject of ACLU lawsuits since which was first implemented in 2019.”
Freshman Republican Representative Brandon Gill is introducing a bill to codify President-elect Donald Trump’s stay-in-Mexico policy. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Advocates of Remain In Mexico, however, have argued that it is one of the only viable solutions to help cities and towns on the US side of the border, many of which have seen their infrastructure strained by the volume of people crossing the border. legally or seek asylum. .
Gill submits his bill about two weeks early Trump takes office for his second term.
Codifying the policy in federal law would make it much more difficult for critics to later repeal it under a different administration.
Congressional Republicans have rushed to prepare for Trump’s return with a series of conservative legislative proposals made since the 119th Congress began last Friday.
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Authorities escort two suspects after the death of an agent of the National Migration Institute, in Samalayuca, outside Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on December 30, 2024. (REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez)
A significant number of these bills are related to immigration and the borderan issue that proved critical for the GOP in the November election.
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The House on Tuesday passed its first bill of the term, intended to allow federal officials to detain migrants accused or convicted of theft-related crimes. More than 40 Democrats voted in favor of the bill, along with every Republican present.
Trump has indicated he expects an active first 100 days in office, especially with Republicans controlling both the House and Senate.
The White House did not return a request for comment.
