The program will launch in seven border cities, including San Diego, Calexico, Nogales, El Paso, Eagle Pass, Laredo, and Brownsville – all cities in which the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) was once enforced. MPP, known also as the "Remain in Mexico" policy, appears to have provided the motivation to create the program in the first place. Several legal aid organizations have remained wary of assisting because some believe the program presents a humanitarian issue.
U.S. authorities detained above 1.7 million immigrants endeavoring to cross the U.S.-Mexico border during the 2021 fiscal year - the most since the passage of President Ronald Reagan's sweeping immigration reform bill in 1986.
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The Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) will run the program after it kicks off the ground, agency spokesperson Kathryn Mattingly told Axios. The Biden Administration hopes to set the program in motion within the next 60 days.
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The LAB program will mainly provide legal assistance, with contractors explaining options for remaining in the U.S. while deportation orders remain pending, as well as general court practice and procedures individuals should be aware of before their appearance.
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The program is part of the government’s wider "Access EOIR" initiative, which the Justice Department announced last September. The initiative aims to provide "noncitizens and their representatives" more resources for the legal mechanisms they will face trying to enter the country.
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President Biden signed several immigration-related executive orders in his first 100 days in office, many of which focused on unbinding Trump-era immigration policies such as "Remain in Mexico." Biden's new orders resulted in a 60% decrease in ICE arrests, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
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"As required by a federal court order, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been working in good faith to re-implement the Migrant Protection Protocols program," the Department of Homeland Security declared in a statement at the time. "Today, in coordination with the Departments of State and Justice, DHS announced key changes to MPP to address humanitarian concerns raised by the Government of Mexico and shared by the U.S. Government."
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Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas this week said that "unlawful presence" in the United States alone will no longer serve as a reason for deportation. "Rather, we will allocate our efforts, we will allocate our resources on those individuals who present a current public safety threat, a threat to national security, or a threat to our border security, and that is a very important principle," Mayorkas said during his address at the U.S. Conference of Mayors.