May 23 was to be the end of a shameful chapter in the recent history of human rights in the United States. Back on April 1, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had determined that the COVID-19 pandemic had eased sufficiently to make the so-called “Title 42” border policy unnecessary.
As of May 23, undocumented migrants apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border would no longer be rapidly expelled., Official border crossings (ports of entry) would re-open to migrants who fear for their lives. Asylum seekers would no longer be sent away in violation of U.S. and international law: they would have the opportunity to make their claims for protection.
That did not happen. Twenty-one Republican state attorneys-general filed suit in the court of a Trump-appointed district judge in Louisiana, who ruled on May 20 that the Biden administration did not properly terminate the emergency CDC measure. Because the ruling would require CDC to go through a public notice-and comment process in order to issue another ruling to terminate Title 42, it may now be in place until 2023 at the earliest.
Ports of entry remain closed to asylum seekers. Although another court ruling (Huisha-Huisha vs. Mayorkas) goes into effect today that requires the Biden administration to screen migrant families for protection needs, other migrants who turn themselves in to U.S. authorities asking for protection run a risk of being driven right back to the Mexico border, or being flown back to their countries of origin, to face the threats that they fled.
So far in 2022, U.S. immigration courts have granted asylum or other relief in 48.4 percent of the 23,590 cases they have heard. Title 42 has prevented tens of thousands of other cases from even being filed. This means there is a gigantic probability that the pandemic measure, which did not expire on May 23, has sent many people back to severe harm or death.
This is the most serious consequence of keeping Title 42 in place. But there are others.
