As the end of Title 42 nears, the Biden administration is encouraging immigrants to take up more legal pathways to enter the country, or face new and expedited deportation processes.
Such deportation processes are set to come with the implementation of a new rule the administration is set to finalize soon. The rule would deny asylum to many immigrants who are caught crossing the southern border illegally.
The new regulation “provides that individuals who do not access our lawful pathways will be presumed ineligible for asylum and will have a higher burden of proof, to overcome that assumption of ineligibility,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said at a press conference on Friday.
The move is part of the Biden administration’s plan to curb an anticipated rise in illegal immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border starting May 11, when Title 42 will be lifted. The date also marks the end of the U.S. COVID-19 public health emergency.
Title 42, part of the Public Health Service Act of 1944, was implemented under the Trump administration in March 2020. It allows for blocking asylum claims and swift expulsion of most unauthorized border crossers under the grounds of keeping contagious diseases out of the United States.
Under Title 42, border agents were able to rapidly send back many illegal immigrants to Mexico, which helped stem the spread of COVID-19 in crowded detention settings.
When Title 42 is lifted, all illegal immigrants will be processed under the Title 8 immigration law.
From Title 42 to Title 8
“In a post-Title 42 environment, we will be using our expedited removal authorities under Title 8 of the United States Code. That allows us to remove individuals very quickly,” Mayorkas said on Friday.
The U.S. State Department and U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a fact sheet last week the country will double or triple the number of deportation flights to some countries and aim to process migrants crossing the border illegally “in a matter of days.”
