Title 42 May End as Soon as April

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Mayorkas and other officials plan to notify Mexico that Title 42 may end as soon as April. The administration has prepared a draft document on the subject though it has yet to be formalized.

Mexico is being notified in order for the country’s officials to plan for an increase in migrants coming to the US-Mexico border and straining already insufficient resources. The Biden administration has been criticized from the beginning of his administration for keeping in place Title 42 by the progressive open borders wing of his party. Mayorkas stated that his top priority was to see an end to the pandemic, which is spread from those crossing the border infected with the virus. The problem with that statement, though, is that Joe Biden put a stop to the previous administration’s successful policies to secure the southern border. Title 42 alone isn’t enough to get the job done. With pandemic mandates winding down now across the country and the rulings of two recent court cases, the Biden administration sees a light at the end of the tunnel and is preparing to end the policy.

Title 42 is a policy recommendation from CDC in times of public health emergencies. It is very rarely used. The Trump administration put it in place at the CDC’s recommendation to mitigate the spread of the pandemic. Biden modified the order to exempt unaccompanied minors from quick expulsion, which was the subject of one of the recent lawsuits. A federal appeals court panel in Washington, D.C. ruled against the administration. In February, the CDC renewed the recommendation for 60 days. Since August 2021, public health officials have evaluated the need for the policy every 60 day.

It is looking like the CDC will follow most states and ease pandemic mandates, including an end to Title 42. The administration calls actions like drafting a document to give Mexico a heads-up “contingency planning” because those who are considering making a run for the southern border into the United States will see it as opening the border even further than it already is, thanks to the Biden border crisis.

DHS officials in particular planned to stress to Mexico that if Title 42 is no longer in place, the agency will need to return to processing immigrants who cross the border without authorization through normal, pre-COVID practices, which would allow them to seek asylum and protection within the US. Prior to Title 42, immigrants apprehended at the border could apply for asylum and their claims were evaluated to determine if they could remain in the country to pursue their cases.

But those prepandemic practices could “seriously strain” border resources and lead to a challenging humanitarian situation in northern Mexico, the draft DHS document warns. Department officials also express concern about “historically and unseasonably high” numbers of immigrants crossing the border without authorization.

The use of Title 42 has given the Biden administration more than a year to consider changes to border policies and the asylum system. But whether any major changes will be in place when Title 42 goes away remains to be seen. Administration officials have been keen to implement a plan to dramatically reshape how asylum-seekers are processed in order to address a massive backlog of immigration court cases, potentially cutting the wait period for some applicants by years. The plan, which has yet to be released in its final version, would shift the decision-making power for whether certain immigrants encountered at the border are granted asylum from an immigration judge to an asylum officer.

So, for more than a year, the Biden administration has thought about it but didn’t bother to draw up plans on how to manage the end to Title 42? That’s what is sounds like to me. It would be a logical conclusion, too, because Biden’s border crisis is a deliberate crisis. Biden has no intention of securing our southern border, preferring instead to leave it to border states to fend for themselves. The top priority in Joe Biden’s job description is protecting our country and people, which includes securing our borders. Sleepy Joe doesn’t care.

Two Democrat senators have jumped on the bandwagon of those calling for an end to Title 42 and say Biden should just go ahead and end the policy instead of waiting on the CDC for guidance.

“Title 42 has been nothing short of disastrous for immigrant families seeking asylum from the horrors in their own countries,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, said. “It is unacceptable that this policy continues to be used indiscriminately to remove migrants with valid refuge claims from our Southern border.”

“I continue to be disappointed, deeply disappointed in the administration’s response. Title 42 goes against everything this country stands for,” Schumer said Thursday in a press call to pressure Biden into rescinding the rule. “The United States is supposed to welcome refugees with open arms, not put them in additional danger by denying them a chance to plead their case and leaving them at the mercy of criminals and smugglers.

But Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-New Jersey, said it’s Biden’s prerogative to terminate the policy.

“The CDC, at the end of the day, is part of the administration. I have no doubt if the administration decided it would no longer use this policy, that the CDC would follow,” Menendez said in the same press call.

He said Title 42 has failed to accomplish its goal because expelled migrants will attempt to cross again, avoiding apprehension and U.S. government screening.

“The continued use of Title 42 to expel migrants without screening has created life-threatening conditions and significantly increased the number of dangerous border crossings,” Menendez said. “In many cases, it has also increased the public health risks that the order claims to address. It is neither humane nor effective in managing migration. In fact, it’s a threat to our border security.”

Refugees from Ukraine and Russia have turned up at the southern border in recent weeks. Biden has already granted temporary protected status for Ukrainians. At a press conference Thursday, Schumer told the story of a Ukrainian woman and her three children who have tried three times to enter the US and have been turned away. The iron is hot to strike now for using Ukrainians as a reason to loosen up border security restrictions already very loose.

Menendez said he and some colleagues have requested a meeting with the president to address immigration policy.

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