Last week’s news underscores the urgent need for the Biden administration to immediately end Title 42 in its entirety.
On Friday, March 4, 2022, two different courts issued two deeply contrasting opinions regarding Title 42. In Huisha Huisha v. Mayorkas, a panel in the DC District Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that while families can be subjected to Title 42 expulsions, they cannot be expelled back to conditions in which their “life or freedom would be threatened”, or they would be tortured. Given that the vast majority of people currently subject to Title 42 are asylum seekers, this ruling delivers a major and hopefully decisive blow to Title 42.
However, hours later, a lower federal court judge in Texas ruled that unaccompanied children – children without a parent or a legal guardian – must be expelled under Title 42. In a decision that is as nonsensical as it is cruel, that court ruled that the Biden administration was not justified in creating an exemption to its draconian expulsion policy for unaccompanied minor children. The Texas decision also repeatedly and disingenuously suggests that Title 42 expulsions apply only to children or asylum seekers who are COVID-positive, when in fact, Title 42 operates as a blunt weapon that excludes any asylum seeker regardless of their COVID status. Under Title 42, we have witnessed countless asylum seekers present proof that they tested negative for COVID-19 and were nevertheless turned away by U.S. immigration authorities. At the end of this week, unaccompanied immigrant children will join other vulnerable families and asylum seekers in being cruelly expelled from safety unless the Biden administration acts.
The findings of these two rulings contrast in many ways, but together, they make one thing exceptionally clear: anything short of ending Title 42 immediately and entirely is a moral failure. President Biden has the authority and the obligation to do so. Nearly two years after Title 42 was first applied at the border, it remains one of the only pandemic restrictions that has not yet been lifted, or even evolved over the course of nearly two years. As the D.C. Circuit Judges acknowledged, there is no public health justification for this policy, but President Biden has chosen to use it to keep the southern border closed to those seeking protection, putting politics over people. The continued use of Title 42 is a farce, and it’s a farce that has killed people and put thousands more in grave danger. Unaccompanied children will be the newest victims of this cruel and unconscionable policy.
Each day Title 42 expulsions continue, the U.S. government forces people into immediate and life-threatening danger. It is a stain on this administration and our nation’s legacy as defender of human rights and refuge for people fleeing harm. Once again, we call on the President to immediately end Title 42 and restore full access to asylum at the border for all people.
In the meantime, we will be here, providing migrants at the Arizona-Sonora border with critical information about their rights and changing border policies. And we will continue to advocate alongside asylum seekers displaced at the U.S.-Mexico border to secure their rights and dignity.