“It is very important to note that while of course we are preparing for the end of Title 42,”
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas
said recently, “that does not mean the border is open beginning May 23.”
Mayorkas, who was speaking at a press conference in McAllen,
Texas
, was only half right. May 23 is not some magical date when the southern border will suddenly flip from “closed” to “open.” Rather, President Joe Biden has been
steadily rolling back
the use of Title 42 since the day he was sworn into office. The planned end of Title 42 is just a further extension of what has already been a functionally open border for some time.
Just look at the latest “status report” filed by DHS under federal court order as part of litigation with Texas over Biden’s decision to end the Remain in Mexico policy. According to DHS data filed with the court, the use of Title 42 to expel migrants fell from 109,549 in March to 96,908 in April, despite an increase in the overall number of migrants from 221,303 to
234,088
. Meanwhile, the use of Title 8 to process migrants rose from 111,754 in March to 137,180 in April. In other words, DHS has been phasing out the use of Title 42 in favor of Title 8, which was Mayorkas’s plan all along.
“We are now using Title 8 in a number of different contexts,” Mayorkas said at his McAllen press conference on May 17. “What we’ll be doing is expanding that use when Title 42 is no longer something we will be able to use.”
So, what will border enforcement look like when Title 42 is completely phased out? Here are the numbers from April: Of the 137,180 migrants arrested and processed through Title 8, just 16,340 were denied entry into the United States. The rest were either immediately released into the U.S., free to go wherever they want (117,989), or detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be released at a later date.
That means just 12% of migrants arrested for illegally crossing the southern border were returned across the border. So no wonder more illegal migrants are coming.
Mayorkas may claim that the migrants he releases into the U.S. are still “in immigration proceedings,” but that’s not really accurate. As Mayorkas admitted at that very same press conference, it currently takes seven to eight years between the initial arrest of a migrant and a final determination of his or her asylum status.
That is seven to eight years of living in the U.S., working a job in the place of some American, and having children who will be U.S. citizens. Even if these migrants do lose their asylum claim — nearly 80% of them eventually do — there is no way any future administration will make any effort to track them down and deport them. So, Mayorkas and Biden have lined up all of the incentives to encourage illegal border crossings.
Migrants from around the world see that the Biden administration is allowing 90% of illegal border crossers to make a new life in the U.S. That is why millions have already come, and why millions more are already on their way.
