Migrant Caravan
A woman holds a sign during a march in support of the migrant caravan along the border Sunday, Nov. 25, 2018, in San Diego. Shortly after the march, migrants approaching the U.S. border from Mexico were enveloped with tear gas Sunday after a few tried to breach the fence separating the two countries. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

A year ago, the Department of Homeland Security instituted it Migrant Protection Protocols, or MPP. The overall purpose was to disincentivize human trafficking in illegal immigrants along our southern border. Thanks to policies instituted during the last couple of years of the Obama administration and the actions of a handful of federal judges who seem hellbent on ensuring that our immigration laws are impossible to enforce, we have seen the character of illegal immigrants along the border change from predominantly single Mexican adults to family units that are mostly not from Mexico but use Mexico as their staging point for their attempt to cross the border. When they are apprehended, because of court decisions, the family unit is released on parole within the United States and are on the honor system to show back up for their immigration hearing.

One feature of the program is that illegals of any nationality are returned to Mexico to await their court date:

Certain aliens attempting to enter the U.S. illegally or without documentation, including those who claim asylum, will no longer be released into the country, where they often fail to file an asylum application and/or disappear before an immigration judge can determine the merits of any claim.  Instead, these aliens will be given a “Notice to Appear” for their immigration court hearing and will be returned to Mexico until their hearing date.

While aliens await their hearings in Mexico, the Mexican government has made its own determination to provide such individuals the ability to stay in Mexico, under applicable protection based on the type of status given to them.

Aliens who need to return to the U.S. to attend their immigration court hearings will be allowed to enter and attend those hearings.  Aliens whose claims are found meritorious by an immigration judge will be allowed to remain in the U.S.  Those determined to be without valid claims will be removed from the U.S. to their country of nationality or citizenship.

There has been a flurry of court action, as to be expected, but late yesterday the Ninth Circuit decided to impose an injunction barring the policy from being carried out.

A federal appeals court has decided to block the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” plan in two states along the U.S. border, following back-and-forth rulings over the program.

In its order late Wednesday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said that next week the administration will have to stop making asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for the U.S. to process their claims, but that the court ban applies only to areas in its jurisdiction, Arizona and California.

The decision comes less than a week after the appeals court briefly blocked the program, then quickly suspended that order.

On Wednesday, the court said it remains “very clear” that a lower court was correct in ruling that the Trump administration program — technically called the Migrant Protection Protocols, or MPP — may violate the law. “It is equally clear,” the court added, “that the MPP is causing extreme and irreversible harm to plaintiffs,” many of whom are asylum-seekers themselves.

It is interesting to note that the judges in this travesty were very cautious to avoid poking the Supreme Court in the eye by making their ruling nationwide.

In the last two months well over 300 Chinese have been apprehended crossing into the US from Mexico. Where these illegals had to return to Mexico to await processing, now they will be released on parole into the interior of the United States. Covid-19 has been detected in the Dominican Republic and Honduras. Given the public health capacity in those countries as well as Guatemala and El Salvador, we can anticipate that in a very short period of time a significant number of illegals will be carrying Covid-19.

What the Ninth Circuit did here is inexplicable in any scenario that a) does not involve deliberately attempting to stymie efforts to stop illegal immigration and b) #OrangeManBad. At a time when we are on the leading edge of an disease epidemic, the decision shows nothing short of reckless disregard for the health of American citizens…and especially for illegals living in the United States…and seems designed to prevent public health officials from taking effective action to locate and isolate people infected with Covid-19.