H.R. 273: REMAIN in Mexico Act of 2025

H.R. 273, the REMAIN in Mexico Act, is two sentences long. It tells the Secretary of Homeland Security to carry out the Migrant Protection Protocols — the program better known as “Remain in Mexico” — and to run it by the rulebook former Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen issued on January 25, 2019.

Under that program, certain people who arrive at the southern border and seek asylum are returned to Mexico while their cases move through U.S. immigration court. They cross back for hearings, then return to Mexico to wait for the next one.

The policy has already been switched on and off twice. It launched in 2019, the Biden administration ended it, and the Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that DHS had the authority to do so. The Trump administration moved to restart it in January 2025, days after this bill was introduced.

H.R. 273 would take the on-off switch away from the executive branch: a future administration could not end the program without Congress changing the law. The bill also says it applies regardless of any other law, which is Congress trying to prevent conflicting statutes from being used to get around it. Courts would decide how far that reaches.

The bill adds nothing else. It has no funding, no staffing levels, no new exceptions, and no deadlines of its own. Every operational detail — who is eligible, who is exempt, how hearings work — comes from the 2019 memo.