Who Will be Affected by DHS’s Plans to Start Processing Remaining MPP Cases? Here are the data.
Visit AustinKocher.com for more short articles about the current state of the US immigration system or follow me on Twitter here for news, policy, and data about immigration.
The Department of Homeland Security announced plans today to process 28,000 asylum-seekers with active cases under the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as ‘Remain in Mexico.’ When MPP was announced in January 2019, TRAC at Syracuse University responded quickly by making detailed data available to the public. Today, TRAC updated its publicly-available MPP data tool here.
As of the end of January 2021, immigration court records show that:
71,036 immigrants have been enrolled over the lifetime of MPP
29,148 immigrants have active pending cases under MPP
41,888 immigrants’ MPP cases have been completed or closed
Just 1.5% of completed cases (641 total) have been granted some form of relief
86% of the immigrants with pending MPP cases do not have an attorney on file
The top three nationalities with pending cases are Cubans, Hondurans, and Guatemalans. Over 1,700 Venezuelans also have pending MPP cases.
Although some people with pending cases may have given up after waiting for their hearing or due to violence in northern Mexico, it remains a legal and moral imperative that the US government abide by national and international refugee law and provide these individuals with an opportunity to request asylum. Unfortunately, DHS’s process for hearing these remaining cases relies on a virtual registration process that may actually exclude precisely those asylum-seekers who don’t have access to technology and who are the most in need of protection.
We at TRAC will continue to monitor the outcomes of MPP cases in the coming months.
