Restoring the Legal Right to Seek Asylum: The Case for Ending Title 42 

Last Updated: May 25, 2022

Authors:

Jessica Juarez Scruggs, Director of Training and Capacity Building (jessica@progressivecaucuscenter.org)

Ricardo Pacheco, Legislative Affairs Associate

(ricardo@progressivecaucuscenter.org)

Introduction

On April 1, 2022, the Biden Administration announced that by May 23, 2022 it would end its use of the Trump-era Title 42 expulsion policy, a public health authority that was weaponized by the Trump administration to immediately remove people seeking safety at our border and deny them the ability to seek asylum. Under the Title 42 policy, migrants seeking protection at the southern border have been expelled to Mexico, to their country of origin,  or in some cases to third countries without any process at all, despite their legal right to seek asylum in the United States. During the more than two years since the Title 42 policy has been in effect, it has resulted in over 1.8 million expulsions. 

The unprecedented misuse of Title 42 undermines the legal right to apply for asylum, putting people in life-threatening danger, upending our immigration system, and failing in its purported goal to protect public health. Title 42 also contravenes the United States’ stated goals of building an “orderly, secure, and well-managed border while treating people fairly and humanely.” Human rights advocates, immigrant communities, public health professionals and progressive leaders celebrated the Biden Administration’s decision to end the use of Title 42 as an important step forward to reverse the cruel and inhumane anti-immigrant policies of the Trump Administration. They called for an immediate end to the policy and strengthening protection of the long-established legal right to apply for asylum. 

Since September of 2021, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) started planning for the end of Title 42 expulsions and on April 27, 2022, the Administration revealed its plan for processing the backlog of migrants at our southern border in an orderly and humane manner once this inhumane policy is rescinded. The rescission of Title 42 is a welcome step toward repairing our broken immigration system, but there is much more work to do. This is not the first time that public health has been used as an excuse for anti-immigrant policies in our history, but it should be the last.