Washington (US), February 2: The Biden administration has asked the US Supreme Court to cancel oral arguments scheduled in the coming weeks on Trump-era cases concerning border wall funding and the so-called "Remain in Mexico" asylum program, officially known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), court documents revealed.
On his first day in office on January 20, President Joe Biden took executive action to halt the ongoing construction of the border wall and to suspend the MPP program while his team reviews the Trump-era policies.
"Pursuant to Rule 21.1 of the Rules of this Court, the Acting Solicitor General, on behalf of petitioners, President Joseph R. Biden Jr., et al., provides this notice of a recent Proclamation by the President affecting this case, and respectfully moves to hold the briefing schedule in abeyance and to remove this case from the February 2021 argument calendar," a court document said on Monday regarding the border wall funding case.
In 2019, the Defense Department provided $2.5 billion to the Department of Homeland Security to construct a wall on the US-Mexico border.
The Biden administration has also asked the Supreme Court to cancel an oral argument scheduled on March 1 for a case regarding the legality of the MPP program, which required asylum-seeking migrants to temporarily return to Mexico for the duration of their proceedings. About 68,7000 migrants have been subject to the policy.
Source: Sputnik
