CDC to end Trump-era rule blocking asylum seekers at the border

(Video: (Carmen Valencia/ Yahoo News)

The Biden administration announced Friday that it will end a controversial pandemic-era policy that has effectively sealed off the U.S.'s borders to asylum seekers for more than two years.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday that the CDC director had determined that the sweeping public health order, known as Title 42, is “no longer necessary” to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S.

The CDC said the termination of the order, issued by the Trump administration during the early days of the pandemic, would not go into effect until May 23 “to enable DHS time to implement appropriate COVID-19 mitigation protocols, such as scaling up a program to provide COVID-19 vaccinations to migrants” and to prepare to resume regular processing of migrants requesting asylum or other protection at the border.

Title 42 refers to an obscure public health authority that allows the government to block noncitizens from entering the country during a pandemic. According to the Associated Press, the Trump White House pressured the CDC to issue its initial Title 42 order in March 2020 over the objections of the agency’s top scientists, who argued there was no evidence that the policy would slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Since then, the Title 42 order has been used by both the Trump and Biden administrations to expel more than 1.7 million migrants to their home countries without giving them a chance to apply for asylum or other protections in the U.S.

While human rights advocates, public health experts and many Democratic lawmakers have consistently called for the policy to be revoked, the Biden administration has instead defended it in federal court.

Critics of Title 42 expressed cautious optimism in response to the CDC’s announcement rescinding the policy.

“Finally, we can look forward to the end of the Title 42 policy, one of the most inhumane immigration policies ever implemented at the U.S. southern border,” Michele Heisler, medical director at Physicians for Human Rights, said in a statement. “While PHR welcomes the CDC’s plans to rescind this harmful order, it’s critical that the U.S. government acknowledge its misuse of public health to deny the right to seek asylum for more than two years, and to ensure that racist and xenophobic narratives cannot be wielded again to end asylum at the border, in contravention of U.S. and international law.”

Jennifer Babaie, the U.S.-Mexico Border Project program director at the International Refugee Assistance Project, called Friday’s announcement “a key first step toward fully restoring access to asylum at the U.S. border for all people fleeing violence and persecution.”

“Rather than wait until May 23, the administration should act quickly to end Title 42 and begin coordinating with local service providers immediately to expand processing capacity without relying on equally inhumane policies like Remain in Mexico, metering, or mass detention,” Babaie said in a statement. “Title 42 has never been about protecting public health, but is instead an illegal and xenophobic attack on migrant rights that the Biden administration is right to end.”

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Border Security, Facilitation and Operations, also praised the decision to end Title 42.

“This harmful and inhumane policy was never based on sound science or public health need but was an all-too-convenient tool for the extreme members of the previous administration to close the border,” Thompson and Barragán said in a statement.

Not all Democrats were in favor of the move, however.

“Prematurely ending Title 42 without a comprehensive, workable plan would put at risk the health and safety of Arizona communities and migrants,” said Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., who serves as chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Government Operations and Border Management. Fellow Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, also a Democrat, echoed Sinema’s words in his own statement, calling Friday’s announcement “the wrong decision.”

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, framed the announcement as the “worst domestic news today,” saying it was sure to result in “double or more the number of ‘undocumented’ immigrants at the border.”

Despite the CDC director’s conclusion that Title 42 is no longer necessary, Department of Homeland Security officials said Friday that the policy will continue to be used to turn away migrants arriving at U.S. land borders until it is officially terminated on May 23. After that, migrants who cross the border without proper documentation will be placed in removal proceedings in the U.S. and given the opportunity to petition an immigration judge to grant them asylum or other humanitarian protections.

DHS officials, who spoke to reporters on background, said they’ve “been planning for eventual lifting of CDC’s Title 42 order for many, many months,” and have already begun sending officers and resources to the border in anticipation that the change of policy would lead to a surge in migration at the border with Mexico.

“We know that smugglers will spread misinformation to take advantage of vulnerable migrants,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. “Let me be clear: Those unable to establish a legal basis to remain in the United States will be removed.”