President Joe Biden's administration is moving ahead with plans to end a Trump-era COVID policy, despite a Texas Republican congressman's warnings of dire consequences at the border should that happen.
The Biden administration announced on March 30 it would begin winding down Title 42 in late May, saying that a 30-page directive from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that Title 42 is no longer necessary. The announcement came the same day U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, who represents Texas' 21st congressional district, said Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has a "constitutional duty to defend the border of the United States."
"When the secretary ends Title 42, there will be a deluge at our southern border," Roy said on the House floor in a video posted to his Twitter page. Roy added that Homeland Security already is working "behind the scenes and quietly" with the Federal Emergency Management Agency "to deal with the emergency that is no doubt about to occur at our southern border."
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas
| dhs.gov/
"This is going to cause massive injury to migrants, cartels empowered, Americans endangered, fentanyl pouring across our border, all because the secretary refuses to do his job," Roy said. "This is an inexcusable dereliction of duty by the secretary of Homeland Security. It is an impeachable act to not carry out his constitutional duty to defend the border of the United States."
Roy urged his congressional colleagues "to condemn the secretary, condemn the administration and demand that the secretary actually do his job to secure the border and not end Title 42."
Mayorkas was sworn in as Department of Homeland Security secretary by Biden in February 2021.
Biden and Mayorkas are preparing to lift Title 42, according to reports by NBC News published the same day as Roy's Twitter post. Title 42 is Trump-era public health authority used since the spring of 2020 to stem the spread of COVID by holding back the tide of immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border to claim asylum.
The Biden administration maintains that Title 42 is the most sweeping border restriction enacted by the previous administration, that it's used more for quickly deporting hundreds of thousands of migrants over the past two years.
Title 42's eventual end already was being widely discussed before Roy's Twitter post. On March 24, 14 U.S. Senators signed an open letter to Mayorkas asking for information about "preparations and plans to secure the southern border" after Title 42's revocation. In its own open letter to House Democrats earlier in March, the House Freedom Caucus issued data that show about 97,000 border crossings during the first half of the month and that more than half of them were turned back under Title 42.
Homeland Security is bracing for as many as 18,000 migrants crossing the southern border each per day once Title 42 is revoked, according to an ABC News report.
On April 4, three Republican-governed U.S. states – Missouri, Arizona and Louisiana – announced plans to sue the Biden administration over plans to lift Title 42, arguing that ending the pandemic-era restriction would result in an "unprecedented crisis at the United States southern border."
