When a federal judge in November declared Title 42 illegal, “with great reluctance,” he allowed the Biden administration to continue implementing the border management policy for five weeks.
Those five weeks end on Wednesday, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will no longer have the tool it used to deport 78,477 foreign nationals in October.
Here are five things to know about Title 42:
It was controversial from the start
Title 42 allows U.S. border officials to quickly deport foreign nationals at the border under the guise of pandemic-related public health protections, in defiance of migrants’ right to seek asylum.
It was first deployed by the Trump administration, after then-White House adviser Stephen Miller pressured the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to exercise their public health authority to impose border restrictions.
The Miller connection alone would make politics toxic on the left, but immigrant advocates and some Democrats have denounced the overtly political use of the public health authority and the effects of Title 42 on the already weakened asylum system.
Although the Biden administration has publicly pledged to protect the asylum process, it has also fought to keep Title 42 in place, an indication that DHS does not believe it can successfully manage current immigration flows. without a draconian tool like Title 42.
“We need to reform our asylum system…The administration has taken steps in this direction, for example, empowering asylum officers to grant asylum at the interview stage to help clear the backlog , but what we don’t need and know for sure is Stephen Miller’s policy that deports migrants to danger and death and violates international law,” said Lorella Praeli, co-chair of Community Change, a leading progressive advocacy group.
He gutted the asylum system
U.S. authorities have used Title 42 to deny foreign nationals about 2.5 million times since 2020.
The total number of people affected by the policy is lower, in part because Title 42 summary deportations do not result in reservations for repeated unauthorized border crossings, leading to recidivism.
Yet Title 42 has made it virtually impossible for nationals of certain countries to seek asylum, while nationals of countries that do not have agreements with the United States are treated using Title 8, the Ordinance which authorizes asylum applications.
This has made it virtually impossible for nationals of countries like Haiti to seek asylum in the United States, despite deteriorating conditions there. The Biden administration has repatriated more Haitians than any previous administration, including about 25,000 people in the year following the Haitian migrant crisis in Del Rio, Texas.
In addition to Haitians, Title 42 has directly affected Mexican nationals, as well as Guatemalan, Salvadoran and Honduran migrants, nationalities that Mexico has agreed to admit to its territory.
While migration from Haiti, Mexico and the so-called Northern Triangle in Central America has remained significant, the big change in regional migration patterns has been an increase in the number of Venezuelans, Nicaraguans and Cubans fleeing their country.
“These three countries are a bit more difficult,” said Rep. Henry Cuéllar (D-Texas) is a conservative frontier Democrat who is pushed for the title 42 or similar measures to stay in place.
There is no communication with them. I’ve heard people say they know Nicaraguans, if they try to escape and they come back they consider them traitors. So yes, these are difficult countries, but the rest of the countries we can work with,” added Cuellar.
The Biden administration has reached a deal with Mexico to receive up to 24,000 Venezuelan migrants under Title 42, but for the most part the United States has no way to quickly deport migrants to regional rivals.
And DHS would also seek to implement a version of another Miller immigration policy brainchild, a so-called “transit ban” that would unilaterally reduce the number of migrants eligible for asylum at the border. .
Biden used it more than Trump
Of the 2,426,297 Title 42 meetings between March 2020 and October 2022, 1,966,740 have taken place since February 2021, President Biden’s first full month in office.
0 Comments