Rand Paul Says He’ll Bring Back a Major Trump-Era Border Program as Senate Chair

(DCNF)—Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul said Thursday he will work to reinstate the Remain in Mexico program as the upcoming leader of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Following major GOP gains in the November elections, Republican lawmakers in both the House and Senate are now positioned to better support President-elect Donald Trump’s second-term agenda. Paul, who has served as a ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, announced that he will not only serve as chair next year, but also use his promotion to help bring back a major Trump-era border security program that was discontinued under the Biden administration.

“I chose to chair this Committee over another because I believe that, for the health of our republic, Congress must stand up once again for its constitutional role,” Paul said in a prepared statement. “This Committee’s mission of oversight and investigations is critical to Congress reasserting itself.”

“Our first hearing will examine reinstating the successful Remain in Mexico policy from the first Trump Administration,” the senator said.

Remain in Mexico — officially known as Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) — was an initiative first unveiled by the Trump administration in December 2018 that mandated asylum seekers at the U.S. southern border wait in Mexico while their claims were processed through the immigration court system. The program, aimed at preventing asylum fraud, helped drive down illegal border crossings during Trump’s first term in office.

However, upon entering office, President Joe Biden worked to dismantle Remain in Mexico. Despite court battles during his administration that sought to keep the program in place, MPP was ultimately scrapped. The Biden administration then oversaw record levels of illegal immigration into the country, with fiscal years 2023 and 2024 the worst on record.

Trump has vowed a hardline immigration agenda upon his return to the Oval Office, with pledges to conduct the most expansive deportation program in American history, complete the U.S.-Mexico border wall, beef up the Border Patrol, and remove birthright citizenship to those born on American soil by illegal migrant parents. The president-elect himself has also vowed to bring back the Remain in Mexico policy, with the GOP including it in their official platform ahead of the 2024 Republican National Convention.

However, reinstating the program would require cooperation from the Mexican government — something that could prove difficult. A top official in then-President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s administration in February 2023 wholeheartedly rejected the idea of ever re-implementing the program. Newly elected President Claudia Sheinbaum is widely viewed as Lopez Obrador’s ideological protege.

The Kentucky senator on Thursday said he is ready to hit the ground running with Trump’s upcoming administration.

“We will also expeditiously move President Trump’s critical nominees, including Governor Kristi Noem, in time for Inauguration Day,” Paul stated. “I look forward to continuing the storied history of this Committee’s leadership in consequential bipartisan oversight and investigations.”

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