Alejandro Mayorkas downplays fears of immigrants surge after Title 42 ends

Ryan King

May 07, 02:20 PM May 07, 02:22 PM

The United States has been gearing up for a massive surge at the border over Title 42's expiration for over a "year and a half," according to a top official.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas tempered expectations Sunday while underscoring the complexity of the situation.

MAYORKAS SAYS TITLE 42 BORDER SITUATION IS 'VERY SERIOUS' AND 'VERY DIFFICULT'

"We've been preparing for this for more than a year and a half," Mayoraks told CBS's Face the Nation. "We are working closely with many countries to the South. It's going to take our plan a while to really take hold — for people to understand that they can access lawful, safe, orderly pathways before they reach the border."

"If they come to the border, they will receive a consequence under our enforcement authorities," he added.

Title 42 is a pandemic-era policy enacted under the Trump administration that allows U.S. Border Patrol to expel migrants back to their home country without having an asylum hearing. Initially, the policy was set to expire on May 23, 2022. That was ultimately delayed due to court challenges. It is now slated to be lifted on May 11, 2023.

With Title 42's expiration, fears have increased that a flood of migrants will pour across the U.S.-Mexico border, believing they can get in and remain. In response to the looming lifting of the policy, the Biden administration has announced it will dispatch 1,500 active-duty troops near the El Paso region to assist with the situation.

Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) proposed legislation last week to grant the DHS similar authority under Title 42 over a two-year period without using emergency health powers.

"Title 42 When the expulsion authority is a public health authority, it is not an immigration authority. We will be using our immigration authorities, which call for a consequence regime, which is why we have to correct the lies that smugglers tell vulnerable migrants they think they're coming and they'll be able to stay," Mayorkas replied to a question about the proposal.

In April of last year, the Biden administration unveiled a suite of steps it was taking in anticipation of Title 42 going away. It included a multitude of steps such as surging personnel and resources; bolstering immigrant processing capacity; deterring illegal migration through deportations and prosecutions; and working to counter migration in the Western Hemisphere.

But Mayokas believes that Congress needs to step in and enact broader changes to immigration.

“Everything that the Department of Homeland Security is doing, everything that our partners across the federal government are doing, is within a broken immigration system,” Mayokas contended. “The president passed to Congress a proposal to fix our broken immigration system on the first day in office.”

A number of Democrats, such as Henry Cuellar (D-TX), have dinged the Biden administration over its response to the anticipated crisis. Cuellar specifically commended Mayorkas and suggested that the president was holding him back.

"Untrue. One team, one mission, and we are prepared to execute it," Mayorkas said in response.

Seven killed near migrant shelter after being struck by car in Texas

Ryan King

May 07, 01:35 PM May 07, 01:40 PM

At least seven people are dead after a deadly car incident in Brownsville, Texas Sunday morning, according to police.

A driver, 30-year Michael Alexander Nash, allegedly rammed his vehicle into multiple people near Ozanam Center, a shelter for the homeless and migrants around 8:30 a.m. local time, authorities said.

MAYORKAS SAYS TITLE 42 BORDER SITUATION IS 'VERY SERIOUS' AND 'VERY DIFFICULT'

As many as six people are receiving treatment for injuries stemming from the incident, which took place around Minnesota Road and North Bernal Road, per police. Injuries range from serious to minor.

The suspect is currently in police custody and is being screened for possible drug or alcohol use. He is being kept in the hospital and is under 24-hour supervision, according to local reports.

A motive for the incident is not immediately clear.

Brownsville is a city fixated in close proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border. The accident comes amid high anticipation of a migrant surge next ween week after the pandemic-era Title 42 policy expires on May 11.

The Washington Examiner contacted the Brownsville Police Department for additional information.

US and Mexico enter deal to accept select immigrants ahead of Title 42 expiration

Anna Giaritelli

May 03, 11:28 AM May 03, 11:28 AM

The United States and Mexico have reached a new agreement aimed at bolstering security and immigration processes as arrests at the border tick up just days before the Border Patrol will lose its ability to immediately send people back to Mexico.

Biden administration officials reached the new deal with Mexican officials during a visit to Mexico City this week. The plan is meant to stem some of the irregular migration through the region by opening up new legal pathways that deter people from entering the U.S. without authorization between the ports of entry.

THOUSANDS OF IMMIGRANTS SURGE ACROSS RIVER INTO BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and the White House's Homeland Security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall confirmed that Mexico will accept deported illegal immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela — a move that Mexico had refused to make during most of the pandemic.

In addition, the U.S. will grant admission and work permits to 100,000 people from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras who apply through the family reunification parole process. Immigrants do not need to seek asylum to be allowed into the U.S.

Both countries agreed to crack down on smugglers and human traffickers, particularly in Panama's Darien Gap jungle, where immigrants, including Haitians and Venezuelans, pay cartels to lead them through the dangerous journey in order to get out of South America and into Central America.

The new actions come a day after the Pentagon confirmed that it would send in 1,500 active-duty troops to do non-law enforcement jobs at the border and free up Border Patrol to attend to the border, not menial tasks.

Last week, the Biden administration announced that the U.S. had entered into agreements to open regional processing centers in several countries that immigrants most often travel through to get to the U.S. Its first processing centers were set up in Colombia and Guatemala.

"Individuals from the region will be able to make an appointment on their phone to visit the nearest [regional processing center] before traveling, receive an interview with immigration specialists, and if eligible, be processed rapidly for lawful pathways to the United States, Canada, and Spain," according to a government fact sheet that outlined the policy changes.

But Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas admitted the new centers outside the U.S. would only be capable of processing up to 6,000 people a month — roughly the number of immigrants arrested attempting to enter the U.S. illegally every day in the last two years.

Trump vs. Biden: Academic study determines what president was more effective on border

Anna Giaritelli

March 14, 06:02 PM March 14, 06:02 PM

A study from a top-ranked U.S. university concluded that former President Donald Trump’s “punitive” immigration policies deterred noncitizens from illegally immigrating while President Joe Biden’s “permissive” approach has led to the continuous surge of immigrants coming across the southern border.

Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy found that caravans, or large groups of immigrants who travel to the United States together, overwhelmingly set off for the U.S. southern border under the present administration because they believed they would face lesser consequences and potentially a reward — being permitted to reside in the country.

DESANTIS PUSHES 'STRONGEST' ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN IN U.S. AHEAD OF 2024 ELECTION

“We reached the conclusion that immigration policies that are perceived to be punitive in nature — including the MPP ('Remain-in-Mexico'), ending 'Catch and Release,' and other Trump-era policies — affected migrant caravans negatively, or deterred their formation and movement, while perceived permissive immigration policies — including DAPA, DACA, and ending Title 42 — likely affected migrant caravans positively, or spurred their formation and movement,” the researchers wrote in the March report.

The analysts specifically looked at push and pull factors that prompted immigrants to join caravans traveling from Central America to the U.S.

Nearly half of the 30 caravan movements tracked between 2017 and 2022 unfolded in 2021, Biden’s first year in office.

Trump’s early opposition to allowing illegal immigrants to be released into the U.S., policy implementation that required immigrants seeking asylum to remain in Mexico during asylum decisions, and hundreds of executive actions were seen as obvious signals to immigrants entering the country without authorization that they would have to return to their country of origin.

In contrast, Biden’s decision to stop all deportations of illegal immigrants during his first 100 days in office, ceasing all border wall construction projects, and promises to remake the asylum system sent signals to people around the world that Trump’s hardening of the border had ended.

In Biden's first two years in office, the number of immigrants encountered attempting to enter the U.S. without authorization has spiked to the highest levels ever seen.

More than 5 million immigrants have been encountered, primarily between the ports of entry, since February 2021. Pandemic public health restrictions barred immigrants from requesting asylum at ports, prompting some people to cross between the ports and get arrested, then seek refuge.

WATCH: Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson calls Biden ‘inconsistent’ on Title 42

Steff Thomas

December 24, 05:23 PM December 24, 05:30 PM

The Biden administration has maintained that the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t over, but the rush to end Title 42 shows how “inconsistent” their claims are, according to Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR).

Hutchinson said President Joe Biden has a “separate agenda” and is not merely trying to manage the public health crisis, but is using the emergency to extend Medicaid requirements.

“The fact is, we still have COVID. We still have flu. And we manage the COVID in the same way that you manage the flu, not in the sense of a public health emergency,” Arkansas's governor said Friday on Fox Business's The Evening Edit.

ALL EYES ON CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS AS TITLE 42 BORDER POLICY HANGS BY A THREAD

“Totally inconsistent. We need to continue [Title 42]. He knows what's coming ahead,” Hutchinson told host Elizabeth MacDonald. “It's unacceptable to say that we've got to end this now.”

Title 42 of the Public Health Service Act of 1944 was enacted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in March 2020, one week after then-President Donald Trump declared a national emergency over the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020.

The policy gave the Trump administration the ability to deny the admission of goods and people who posed a risk of spreading a communicable disease. Under the law, all noncitizens seeking asylum at ports of entry and those who crossed illegally between the ports were to be expelled back immediately into Mexico and not be taken into custody by Border Patrol.

The Arkansas Republican said the administration should keep the policy in place until April to give Congress time to enact specific changes to the Trump-era immigration policy.

“[There are] other ways to approach it that would protect our border. Congress needs to address it in that fashion,” he said.

Top Biden officials, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, have been silent about the end of Title 42, even as they’ve worked tirelessly to promote vaccination and other COVID-related restrictions. Hutchinson came to Fauci’s defense.

“While he should speak out and be clear, and he doesn't need to get in the political arena, he's a public health official, [so] he ought to stick to the public health requirements,” the governor said, since it’s a topic overlaid with politics.

But sometimes, Hutchinson noted, the leadership has to reverse what public health officials say in order to keep the economy moving or to protect the border. “We've got to put a practicality to our border security,” he said.

“Title 42 needs to continue, not because Dr. Fauci is saying we have a public health crisis, but because it is the practical thing that we need to do right now. Until we enact other options to protect our border: That's the bottom line,” Hutchinson said.

The policy was slated to expire on Wednesday but was kept from termination after Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary administrative stay following an emergency plea from 19 Republican-led states.

The Biden administration also asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday for a delay in the termination, asking for the program to conclude no sooner than next week.

‘Hire AMERICANS’: Jim Jordan responds to Biden’s immigrant labor supply idea

Heather Hamilton

December 21, 08:43 AM December 21, 08:43 AM

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) responded to the Biden administration's idea of lowering inflation through the hiring of immigrants, suggesting that unemployed Americans be considered first.

“Why not just hire AMERICANS looking for jobs?” Jordan tweeted.

NOEM PARTS WITH HEALTH SECRETARY AFTER DISCOVERING STATE CONTRACTED WITH TRANSGENDER GROUP

While jobless claims have dropped, still more than twice the 5 million job openings that were normally available pre-pandemic remain.

In an effort to bolster the economy and increase the labor supply, President Joe Biden is hoping to tackle immigration reform in the new year, according to Axios. Yet with Republicans now controlling the House, he will face greater opposition.

His plan reportedly includes the hiring of “Dreamers” under the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program or Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act — a cause close to Democrats. In exchange, Republicans would receive increased funding for border security.

Immigration reform is "harder in the divided Congress, but it's so clearly necessary in light of what we're seeing in the job market," Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said. "The thing that's underpinning inflation still — that’s driving inflation still — is this tight labor market."

"Immigration is a lever," Raimondo added. "We're down a million immigrants a year. That's a workforce that we need."

The number of immigrants crossing the border is expected to increase by record numbers when Title 42, a pandemic-era policy allowing the government to expel millions of immigrants from U.S. borders expeditiously, expires.

The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday for a delay in Title 42’s termination.