The Trump administration has announced the reinstatement of the "Remain in Mexico" program, reviving an initiative that forces non-Mexican asylum seekers to wait south of the border while their cases are processed.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a statement on Tuesday that it would immediately restart the program, years after it was terminated by Joe Biden.

Donald Trump was re-elected as president on Monday and vowed to continue aggressive border security measures, including reinstating the stay-in-Mexico rule formerly known as the Migrant Protection Protocols. Trump launched the program in 2019 during his first term.

Trump officials say it will stop what they call fraudulent asylum claims, while supporters say it puts vulnerable immigrants, including families with young children, at risk. Biden ended the program in 2021, saying migrants were subjected to filthy and dangerous conditions on the Mexican side of the border.

Activists say this leaves highly vulnerable migrants, mainly from Central and South America, exposed to physical harm and disease in unfamiliar and dangerous environments, some of which have some of the highest murder rates in the world.

The Trump administration said Tuesday that Biden's legal dispute over ending the program provides an opportunity for a quick restart.

Earlier in the day, when asked about the possibility of re-opening residency rights in Mexico, Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum said her government would meet the needs of migrants in a humanitarian manner, while also pledging to bring foreign Immigrants are deported to their home countries.

During her regular news conference Tuesday morning, Scheinbaum noted that while Trump signed an executive order declaring a national emergency over illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, she would insist on respectful relationships and avoid confrontation. .

About 70,000 immigrants were affected by the policy since it was introduced by President Donald Trump in January 2019 until Joe Biden took office in January 2021. Suspending the policy for one day fulfilled a campaign promise.

In the early months of Biden's presidency, many were allowed back into the U.S. to process their cases, often from squalid, dangerous makeshift camps or tight shelters in towns near the Mexican border.

Then it was reinstated, and migrants fleeing to the United States were once again stopped at the border and banned from entering the United States.

This, coupled with a routine deportation policy at the border known as Title 42 under heavily criticized pandemic rules ostensibly to contain the coronavirus, has forced thousands of people to cross the border without authorization, often repeatedly , with fatal consequences for some - succumbing to the botched smuggling business, the swirling waters of Texas' Rio Grande or the deserts there and further west.