Innovation Law Lab v Wolf, 951 F.3d 1073 (9th Cir. 2020)
What was at stake
'Remain in Mexico' (MPP) policy; statutory authority; refoulement risk
What happened
Asylum seekers, primarily from Central America, were subjected to the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), a U.S. Department of Homeland Security policy implemented in January 2019 requiring non-Mexican nationals arriving at the southern border to be returned to Mexico to await the adjudication of their U.S. immigration proceedings. Plaintiffs, including Innovation Law Lab and several individual asylum seekers, challenged the policy, arguing that those returned faced serious dangers of persecution and violence in Mexico and that the policy violated U.S. statutory and international obligations. The district court granted a preliminary injunction halting implementation of MPP, and the government appealed.
What the court decided
Preliminary injunction against MPP affirmed (later subject to stays/changes); key vehicle for challenging border externalisation.
How the court got there
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the preliminary injunction, holding that plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits because the INA's contiguous-territory return provision, 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(C), does not authorize the government to return asylum seekers to a third country where they face persecution or torture, as such a reading would conflict with the mandatory non-refoulement protections embedded in 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3) and the Convention Against Torture implementing regulations. The court further found that the balance of equities and public interest favored the injunction given the serious and irreparable harms facing asylum seekers returned to dangerous conditions in Mexico. The court reasoned that Congress did not intend the contiguous-territory provision to override the United States' binding non-refoulement obligations.
Statutes and cases cited
- § 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(C) (INA contiguous-territory return provision)
- § 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3) (withholding of removal)
- § Convention Against Torture, implementing regulations at 8 C.F.R. § 208.17
- § 8 U.S.C. § 1158 (asylum statute)
- East Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. Barr
- Al-Kidd v. Ashcroft, 580 F.3d 949 (9th Cir. 2009)
- INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421 (1987)
Categories
Authoritative link
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