Texas Public Policy Foundation's David Agren criticized plans to lift Title 42 restrictions, citing a border crisis that will follow.
Earlier this year, the Biden administration announced plans to rescind Title 42, a Trump-era piece of legislation that permitted the expulsion of migrants on the grounds of disease transmission in the midst of the pandemic.
Senior fellow in Mexico Policy, Agren, has shared his thoughts following the news that the Biden administration is still looking for ways to remove Title 42 expulsions despite a handful of states winning a lawsuit that required notice before ending the policy, according to The Hill.
“Title 42, a pandemic health provision facilitating the rapid expulsion of migrants back to Mexico, was scheduled to be lifted May 23,” Agren said, according to The Cannon. “But federal Judge Robert Summerhays issued an injunction against its removal on May 20. Migrants converged on the borderlands in advance of its scheduled lifting, joining the thousands of potential asylum-seekers already waiting in cities such as Reynosa for the opportunity to present their petitions to U.S. officials.”
Prior to the removal of Title 42 being struck down, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas shared that expulsions would have to shift to Title 8, explaining that the DHS will process individuals encountered at the border according to Title 8, which has stood as the standard procedure used to place individuals in removal proceedings.
“Another federal court announced today what we have known all along: President Biden is ignoring federal law with his open border policies," said Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in a press release. "While today’s court ruling rejecting President Biden’s ending of Title 42 expulsions is a positive development, hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants remain at our southern border ready to flood into Texas.”
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol reports that there were more than 234,000 encounters in the month of April 2022.