Fox News Channel’s Peter Doocy asked an excellent question last night after President Joe Biden delivered remarks on his administration’s efforts to fight COVID-19:
Biden responded:
But unaccompanied children is a different story because there’s — that’s the most humane thing to do is to test them and to treat them and not send them back alone.
To the extent this answer is at all intelligible, it is a complete nonresponse. Biden seems to be referring to section 265 of Title 42, which empowers the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to “prohibit … the introduction” of people into the country when the CDC believes that “there is serious danger of the introduction of [a communicable] disease into the United States.”
And former President Donald Trump did use Title 42 to help maintain order on the border starting in March 2020.
But the bulk of Trump’s immigration policies, including the “Remain in Mexico” policy, were enacted long before COVID-19 existed. And it was these policies that ended the 2019 border crisis, not Title 42.
Biden rescinded Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy on his first day in office, thus reopening a loophole in which any migrant from any country other than Mexico can just claim he or she is afraid of returning home, and then the Biden administration will bus the migrant to any desired location in the U.S.
That is the loophole that Biden needs to close to bring order back to the border. But he can’t admit that — hence the nonsensical word salad last night.
