Title 42 was a public health measure that allowed the U.S. to expel migrants without allowing them to seek asylum during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was implemented by the Trump administration in March 2020 and continued by the Biden administration until May 11, 2023, when the national public health emergency expired.
The policy affected hundreds of thousands of migrants from different countries who were seeking entry into the U.S., especially those from Central and South America. Many of them had fled poverty and crime in their home countries, but that doesn’t qualify them for asylum. Some of them had been waiting in Mexico for months or even years under another Trump-era policy known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which required asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their cases were processed in U.S. courts.
The end of Title 42 has been welcomed by pro-migrant groups, Democrats, and cheap-labor Republicans. However, the policy’s expiration has also raised concerns about a continuing and possibly heightened surge of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, which has already seen record numbers of arrivals in recent months. The Biden administration has ineptly tried to address these concerns by claiming stricter deportation efforts and asylum restrictions that would have represented major shifts from the administration’s policy thus far. They have also announced that they will resume a program that allows Central American minors to apply for refugee status from their home countries, but only for those who had been previously approved and denied entry under the Trump administration.
The end of Title 42 has created confusion and uncertainty among migrants, who are asked use a mobile app(!) to seek one of just 1,000 appointments granted daily to seek asylum in the U.S. (With iPhones, all things are possible!) The policy changes have been so erratic that it’s understandable that many migrants are confused. They simply hope to cross the border and be allowed to stay.
Meanwhile, the “root causes” that are pushing people to flee their countries continue, in spite of Biden’s long-ago appointment of his gal Friday VP Harris to do something about them. Has anyone heard news about that project lately?
For more, see MSN.com.