Pekoske/Wolf v. Innovation Law Lab (U.S. Supreme Court, 2021)

Under the “Remain in Mexico” policy, also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), certain asylum seekers arriving at the U.S./Mexico border were forced to return to Mexico to await their U.S. asylum hearing. As of January 2021, tens of thousands of MPP asylum seekers were waiting in Mexico for their asylum hearings, which had been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic since March 2020 with no clear dates for when the hearings would resume. ADL joined 110 other nongovernmental organizations and law school clinics on an amicus brief led by Human Rights First and the National Immigration Law Center, arguing that the Supreme Court should hold that the Remain in Mexico policy is unlawful. The brief argues that MPP is an illegal and inhumane policy that denies refugees access to the U.S. asylum system, blocking virtually all MPP individuals from humanitarian protection in the U.S.; that MPP subjects vulnerable people to harms that rival the persecution they fled; and that by implementing MPP, the U.S. violates its legal commitment to nonrefoulement, which prohibits the U.S. from sending individuals to any country where they would face a well-founded risk of persecution, torture, or other serious human rights violations.