Progressive Democrats have called on President Joe Biden to end the Title 42 health policy that has turned thousands of migrants away at the border, calling them “racist,” “cruel” and “xenophobic.”
Her comments came after Biden said he would follow the court’s decision on the matter. Several states sued the government after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that Title 42 would reopen on March 23.
Some vulnerable Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns about how the government will deal with the expected influx of migrants if the order is lifted. But the Liberal Democrats said the order must go.
Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley said the policy, originally introduced during Donald Trump’s presidency, was “fundamentally racist, unjust and cruel.’
“These unscrupulous racist and xenophobic policies of the Trump era have been in place for too long. It has done nothing but has done unspeakable harm to migrants — especially black and brown migrants — and denied millions of their basic right to seek asylum,” she said during a news conference on Capitol Hill on Thursday.
Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley called Title 42 “fundamentally racist, unjust and cruel.”
MP Pramila Jayapal: ‘Title 42 is not only xenophobic, it’s also hypocritical’
Some vulnerable Democrats have raised concerns about how the government will handle the expected surge in migrants when Title 42 ends — at the top, people use a ladder to scale the border fence at the US-Mexico border in Tecate, Mexico
In March 2020, under the Trump administration, the CDC issued a public health order that allowed for the expeditious deportation of unauthorized frontier workers and asylum seekers, citing COVID-19 concerns.
Thousands of migrants have been turned back at the border, citing the pandemic.
And since this does not count as deportation, the migrants have no right to bring a case before an immigration judge for staying in the United States. Most migrants subject to Title 42 measures are returned to Mexico within hours.
“This policy was never about protecting anyone. Period. These Trump-era policies have always been about inciting fear and hatred against immigrants and undermining our humanitarian obligations to asylum seekers in this country,” Pressley noted.
Oregon Rep. Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said, “Title 42 is not only xenophobic, it’s hypocritical.”
“It has harmed millions of people fleeing war, poverty and hunger. Title 42 should never have been introduced,” she noted.
She said the order was the work of Stephen Miller, a Trump adviser with tough anti-immigration stances.
“Rather, it was instigated by Stephen Miller, Trump’s chief anti-immigrant architect, who was hellbent on eliminating all legal routes into the United States,” said Jayapal, who immigrated to the United States from India when she was 16.
Miller had pioneered the idea of invoking Title 42 on the US-Mexico border back in 2018, well before COVID-19 emerged, the New York Times reported. Miller was behind several Trump policies aimed at reducing the number of migrants coming to the United States.
“Title 42 is a political failure. Plain and simple. It does nothing to prevent the spread of COVID. And by circumventing immigration law, it actually goes against the principles on which our country was founded. So it was the right decision to end it,” noted Jayapal.
But at the other end of the Democratic spectrum, lawmakers are concerned about the expected surge in migration and how to meet those needs.
The Department of Homeland Security is forecasting up to 18,000 daily encounters with migrants – more than double the current average – when Title 42 ends.
To deal with the matter, the agency has released a plan that includes vaccinating migrants in U.S. Customs and Border Protection custody, adding 600 CBP agents across the southwest border, and increasing federal prison capacity from 12,000 to 18,000 included.
And President Biden said Thursday his administration will comply with the courts in Title 42, the public health order turning migrants away at the border.
The administration had planned to end use of the Trump-era order on May 23, but a federal judge in Louisiana has temporarily blocked that move pending another hearing on the matter.
Biden said he will put the fate of public health policy in the hands of the judiciary.
“We had proposed that this policy be abolished by the end of May. The court has said we can’t do that yet and what the court says we will do. The court could come by and say we can’t do that, and that’s it,” Biden told reporters at the White House when asked about the situation.
The court order blocks administration from beginning to winding up Title 42 ahead of its scheduled May 23 completion, but does not prevent the policy from being scrapped on that date.
President Joe Biden said he will obey the courts in Title 42
Asylum seekers gather at the Plaza Las Americas refugee camp in Reynosa, Mexico – experts expect border crossings to surge if Title 42 is lifted
Migrants of different nationalities walk in a caravan through the main streets of Tapachula in Chiapas, Mexico
US District Judge Robert Summerhays has scheduled a critical hearing for May 13 in Lafayette to hear arguments about whether Title 42 should be prevented from ending 10 days later as planned.
Twenty-one states have sued to prevent the order from being lifted, citing concerns about the impact on their states due to the surge in migrants expected to enter the US after the lifting.
The issue is quickly becoming a political hot potato ahead of November’s midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.
Migrants have been expelled more than 1.7 million times under the policy.
A migrant waits on the Mexico side of the border after United States Customs and Border Protection officials detained a few migrants crossing the US-Mexico border on the beach in Tijuana.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas insisted at two separate budget hearings on Wednesday that the southern border crisis was being “effectively managed.”
Meanwhile, before Congress this week, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas insisted the situation on the southern border was “effectively managed” by the government.
“We inherited a broken and dismantled system that is already under pressure,” Mayorkas said in his opening remarks at both hearings on Wednesday. “It wasn’t built to handle current migration flows.”
“Only Congress can fix this,” he insisted.
He also solely blamed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for repealing Title 42, claiming that the CDC had “exclusive jurisdiction” over the public health action.
But, he noted, the administration has a plan.
“Under this administration, our department implemented a comprehensive strategy to secure our borders and rebuild our immigration system,” Mayorkas said in his opening address. “As Public Health Order Title 42 is set to be repealed, we expect migration numbers to increase as smugglers seek to exploit and profit from vulnerable migrants.”
Republicans repeatedly hammered Mayorkas on border strategy when he testified on Capitol Hill.
