CURRET ADMINISTRATION TO END TRUMP’S “TITLE 42”

 

                                     …President Trump signing the Title 42 order

 

Republicans accuse President Biden of inviting problems at the U.S. border

 

The Biden administration’s plan to end a pandemic order (Title 42) barring many migrants from entering the United States.  It could trigger a rush of crossings at the border with Mexico, threatening to increase a political liability for Democrats ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Top Democrats lashed out at the administration and each other, over the fate of an emergency order.  An order, that both the Trump and Bidenp administrations have used to expel undocumented immigrants during the pandemic.  And some arguing for a quicker policy change, while others warning not to move ahead. 

Republicans pounced on President Biden, accusing him of inviting chaos and danger.

Administration officials acknowledged this week that the move could significantly increase the record number of people trying to cross the southern border.  That is where arrests by U.S. Customs and Border Protection have soared to an all-time high.

The decision, which is expected to be announced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week, puts Biden in a familiar political bind on an issue he has long struggled to navigate.  Liberals are dissatisfied because they called for an end to the use of the order, known as Title 42, months ago.  That, while vulnerable centrist Democrats fret that he will further expose the party to attacks from Republicans who say he has not effectively controlled the border.

“There are just some issues in which there’s just no easy policy or political way to resolve them. This is one of those,” said Doug Sosnik, who was a political adviser to President Bill Clinton.

Some Democrats gearing up for competitive races are already distancing themselves from the administration’s plans.  The tension was evident in the response from Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), who sent a letter to Biden urging him not to lift the order without a more robust blueprint in place for dealing with the aftermath.

“There is still not an adequate plan or sufficient coordination to end Title 42,” Kelly said in a statement after a conversation with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.).

In a preview of the midterm attacks, Republicans plan to intensify their approach this fall.  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) attacked Biden over the border in a speech on the Senate floor. “Throwing the floodgates open for an historic spring and summer of illegal immigration would be an unforced error of historic proportions,” said McConnell, who also brought up inflation and Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

White House communications director Kate Bedingfield distanced Biden from the decision to stop enforcing Title 42, saying “this is a decision that the CDC will make.” But she added, “We are preparing for contingencies. And so, what I would say is, you know our goal is going to be to process migrants in a safe and orderly manner.”

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) offered a mixed response to a draft plan to wind down the directive that had circulated earlier this week. It applauding the end of Title 42 but urged swifter movement.

“This is simply unacceptable given they have had more than a year to prepare,” Menendez said in a statement to The Washington Post. “They should not wait nearly two months before ending Title 42 in its entirety, but rather start doing so in phases.”

The plan the White House is expected to adopt would not fully lift Title 42 until late May, which critics point out is roughly tantamount to another 60-day renewal. By setting the date in late May, the administration would have time to reassess its plans if a new coronavirus variant becomes a greater threat to public health.

Menendez said that the May deadline provides potential migrants with a target date to arrive and might incentivize even more people to come here, known to immigration policy wonks as a “pull factor”: “For an Administration afraid of creating ‘pull factors’, I fear their delay may create the biggest pull factor of them all,” Menendez said.

He discussed the issue briefly in a call Wednesday with Steve Ricchetti, one of Biden’s top aides, according to a person familiar with the conversation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it. The call was focused on Menendez’s desire to get some time with the president to discuss a long-stalled effort to revamp the country’s immigration system, the person said.

Biden officials are making worst-case contingency plans for daily border arrests to more than double from the current volume of more than 7,000 daily apprehensions. They are hiring contractors to add tent facilities that can help process migrants faster, along with additional buses and aircraft to transfer migrants away from the border. And they have established a command center at Department of Homeland Security headquarters staffed by interagency teams that include Federal Emergency Management Administration officials who have handled major disasters.

Still unclear, however, is how the administration might structure a phased approach to ending Title 42 that would lift the restrictions on families first, and single adults later. Single adults are a far bigger challenge: records show migrants arriving as part of a family group accounted for just 16% of those taken into custody in February along the southern border.

Either way, Biden faces an uphill climb when it comes to public opinion.  A recent Economist-YouGov poll found that just 33% of respondents approve of Biden’s handling of immigration. The only area where the president had a lower rating was on guns, where just 27% approved.

Even voters in areas far from the border are attuned to immigration. In Wisconsin, which could have one of the most competitive Senate races in the country, 36% of voters said they were “very concerned” over illegal immigration, according to a Marquette Law School poll.

The Title 42 order has been in place since March 2020, when the Trump administration said emergency restrictions were needed to protect U.S. agents, migrants and the public from the spread of the coronavirus inside crowded border stations and detention cells.

Copyright  G. Ater 2022