Immigration

Solving America’s Border Crisis Doesn’t Solely Depend On Keeping A Key Trump-Era Policy, Former Officials Say

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• Keeping Title 42, a major Trump-era illegal immigrant expulsion policy, in place is only a small fix to the record-breaking border crisis, two former Trump administration officials told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
• Amid a court battle over whether the Biden administration should keep the policy in place, Republican states have argued that ending Title 42 will only exacerbate the border crisis.
• “Title 42 is almost a distraction at this point. I’m not saying it should go away, that there’s no impact. There will be an impact. It’s a little bit more marketing right now for the cartels and the total number of people crossing,” former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott told the DCNF.

Keeping a major Trump-era border policy, known as Title 42, in place is not the blanket solution to America’s illegal immigration crisis, two former Trump administration officials told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Biden administration attempted to lift Title 42, which was put in place under the Trump administration to expel certain illegal immigrants to prevent the spread of COVID-19, in May before Republican states sued. The order remains in place and the latest court battle with Republican states awaits Supreme Court intervention.

Title 42, however, is ultimately a bandage for a bigger problem, former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott told the DCNF.

“Title 42 is almost a distraction at this point. I’m not saying it should go away, that there’s no impact. There will be an impact. It’s a little bit more marketing right now for the cartels and the total number of people crossing,” Scott told the DCNF.

Federal border authorities encountered more than 2.3 million migrants at the southern border in fiscal year 2022, a new record. Fiscal year 2023 has also been marked by monthly surges of more than 230,000 migrants.

The Republican states have argued that lifting the policy will only worsen illegal immigration.

“We are already in the midst of the worst catastrophic Border Security crisis in our lifetime,” Former Acting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Chief Mark Morgan told the DCNF. “This administration’s open border policies have resulted in more than 6 million total encounters and known got aways from 160 different countries in less than 24 months.”

“And that’s with Title 42 being in place. Of course losing Title 42 will make the crisis worse, but make no mistake, with or without Title 42, every aspect of our country’s safety and national security is being jeopardized as a direct result of this administration’s ongoing assault on the constitution, rule of law and their sworn duty to secure our borders,” Morgan said.

The Biden administration should be moving away from its priorities of aiding illegal immigrants, Scott argued, citing a recent asylum rule that can give approval without an immigration judge, and the funding of nongovernmental organizations and localities caring for illegal immigrants released into the country.

The asylum officers are there to vet asylum claims in addition to immigration judges, but the process favors those who come illegally, Scott said.

The Biden administration implemented the rule in March to hire asylum officers to approve or deny claims before illegal immigrants faced an immigration judge to speed up a backlogged process. The funding for asylum officers, however, could be used to keep more illegal immigrants in detention, Scott proposed.

There are more than 787,000 pending asylum cases in fiscal year 2023, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Access Records Clearinghouse (TRAC). Applicants wait an average of 1,572 days before their hearing in court.

“If they shifted the money that they’re currently using through FEMA to all these NGOs and the money that CBP is diverting from operations into these processing centers, you diverted that to detention, this problem would go away overnight because 80 to 90% of these claims traditionally are bogus,” Scott said.

“Now the only other catch to that is that they have changed the asylum rules. Basically they watered it down and asylum officers make adjudications, which is not how it should be. And then if the asylum officer rules in the negative, the individual still gets to go see a judge, so they’re giving them two cracks at it instead of one,” Scott added.