Title 42 expiration – latest: Child migrant dies in US custody as Biden under fire over immigration policy

Below you can find a complete guide to expiration of Title 42, a temporary Covid-era policy dating back to the Donald Trump era that has been used as a makeshift border control measure since the pandemic and whose passing has left Texas border cities bracing for a possible surge in migrants and asylum seekers arriving from Central America.

Without Title 42 in place, which allowed the US to repel migrants with providing asylum hearings, Title 8 will come back into play in its stead, once more permitting asylum seekers to apply for legal entry to the US.

Last night, US homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued this message to those hoping to enter the US from Mexico.

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Jorge Maldonado, the mayor of Nogales, Arizona, has told Fox News that he is concerned that a lack of funding may result in migrants getting stuck in his city and other border towns for days or even weeks.

Mayor Maldonado told asylum seekers “there’s no need for people to rush the border”, arguing that US Customs and Border Protection can only process so many people per day.

“We can only process so many, Border Patrol and Customs are doing their best job and processing people, but we can only process so many.

“If we get flooded, the one thing that the city and the county are going to have problems with is funding to get those people out of here.

“You know, then you might be sitting here a couple of long days or weeks.”

Title 42 has been used as a temporary solution to the US’s border crisis for the last three years but as it comes to an end, President Joe Biden will have to replace it with new policies.

Mr Biden indicated these new policies in a fact sheet released in January.

Here’s what he plans to do:

• Expand the parole process for up to 30,000 nationals of Nicaragua, Haiti and Cuba per month who have eligible sponsors and pass background checks. These people may come to the US for a period of two years and receive work authorisation.
• Increase the use of expedited removal to the country of origin for individuals who attempt to enter the US without permission or without a legal basis to remain. These individuals are also subject to a five-year ban on re-entry.
• Increase refugee admissions from Latin America and Caribbean countries.
• Launch a mobile application for migrants to schedule appointments to reduce wait times and crowds at US ports of entry.
• Increase humanitarian assistance by $23m in Mexico and Central America.
• Open legal pathways to the US via other countries like Canada, Mexico and Spain.
• Expand agents and active-duty military personnel to help Border Patrol.

Tom Homan, a former acting ICE director from the Trump era and now an immigration pundit at Fox, has told the network that President Biden and homeland security Alejandro Mayorkas care more about their public image than the situation on the ground as Title 42 expires.

“This is about the optics. They don’t want pictures of overcrowded facilities. That is all they’re concerned with – optics of the crisis, not concern of the crisis,” Homan insisted on The Story on Thursday.

“When Title 42 gets dropped and more people come across, they’re going to pull even more agents off the line to process or release [migrants] quickly,” he argued, alleging that the the Biden administration is prepared to do anything to prevent photographs of crowded holding facilities appearing in the press, as they did during Trump’s failed border crackdown.

He said the consequences of having fewer agents policing the line would be “more fentanyl gets across, more migrants die, more women and children trafficked to the United States, more known suspected terrorists [crossing] the border”.

“The national security job of the secretary is put on the back shelf because they don’t want that optics, they want everybody processed and released,” he said.

Joe Biden arrived in Mexico this week for a summit with president Andres Manuel López Obrador aimed at addressing the record amounts of illicit fentanyl being smuggled across the border into the US.

The fentanyl crisis has wreaked havoc in the United States, turning an already catastrophic opioid epidemic even deadlier. Of the estimated 107,622 fatal drug overdoses in the US in 2021 — the highest number ever recorded — fentanyl was responsible for two-thirds of deaths.

Richard Hall reports:

David Miliband, president and CEO of the humanitarian NGO the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has said ending Title 42 was a “necessary step to restore the rule of law” but that “the IRC believes it is neither right nor practical to render illegal any attempt to claim asylum that is not based on a prior appointment”.

He said that many families arriving at the US border were fleeing for their lives and advocated “humane and effective” case management rather than detention.

“The evidence from around the world is that cruelty is not the route to order,” he said.

Brownsville, Texas, a town that sits on the US-Mexico border has prepared its auxiliary forces in case they are needed as Title 42 ends tonight, 11 May, at 11.59pm.

“Our patrol division is continuing to do what they do, but in order to help out CBP we have officers who are working under a federal grant,” Martin Sandoval, Brownsville Police Department spokesperson, told CNN.

“We have our auxiliary forces ready, so our patrol services don’t get deployed, and our citizens are provided with the same service,” Mr Sandoval said.

Border towns like Brownsville are preparing for an influx of migrants and people seeking asylum.

The river is a known, and highly dangerous, hotspot for illegal attempted border crossings so the state has been reinforcing its barriers in light of the anticipated surge from Title 42’s expiration.

There are approximately 60,000 people waiting to cross into the US from Mexico, according to officials.

Title 42, the pandemic-era immigration law that allows authorities to turn people away from the border due to health reasons ended on Thursday evening at 11.59pm EST.

The end of Title 42 makes it both easier and more difficult for migrants and asylum seekers to enter the US.

While there are now harsh consequences for migrants who illegally enter the United States, there are also more policies that will allow for people seeking asylum to enter