Lawmakers Demand Plan for Migrants as Title 42 Ends

Following pressure from civil liberties groups and members of President Biden's own party, the CDC will reportedly soon do away with Title 42, the Covid-era restriction that allows instant expulsions of migrants at the Southern border.

Expected to end in May, Title 42 is a clause from the 1944 public health code that allows the government to take emergency action to stop the "introduction of communicable diseases" into the U.S., but it had been rarely used until the Trump Administration implemented it as an immigration policy during the Covid pandemic. The Biden Administration continued its implementation, but the decision to continue Title 42 comes up for review every 60 days.

Immigration advocates say it's due for retirement. Rep. Lou Correa (D-CA), on the House Homeland Security Committee's Border Security Subcommittee tells Political IQ, "Title 42, in my opinion, has been used primarily as a way to exclude people from coming to the United States, not for health purposes but for general purposes: ‘Just don't come.'"

Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX), a member of the House Judiciary Committee's Immigration & Citizenship Subcommittee, adds, "I think that with the [other] CDC guidelines changing, and with the vaccination rates as high as they are here in the United States and quite frankly even in Mexico, ours is around 65% and Mexico is 62%, we're almost mirror images of each other."