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Asylum-seeking migrants from Venezuela cross the Rio Bravo river to turn themselves in to U.S. Border Patrol agents to request asylum in El Paso, Texas, Nov. 17.
Photo:
JOSE LUIS GONZALEZ/REUTERS
President Biden’s border policy is to pray that illegal crossings stay low while opposing every enforcement measure. Now that a judge has granted his wish for zero deterrence, he owns the migrant surge that’s now going to get worse.
Federal Judge
Emmet Sullivan
on Tuesday struck down the Administration’s most effective border deterrent, known as Title 42. The policy invokes Covid emergency powers and has been used to expel more than 2.4 million migrants since March 2020. The court gave the Administration five weeks to put a plan together before migrant removals are halted on Dec. 21.
Mr. Biden can blame himself for this mess. He condemned Title 42 on taking office and moved to cancel it this spring. At the same time, the Administration has continued to use it and even expanded it last month to address the rising number of Venezuelan migrants. That’s why a ruling in May that delayed its cancellation was “greeted with quiet relief” by the Administration, according to the Associated Press.
Yet Title 42 has been on a collision course with the law for months, and the President has no excuse for ill preparation. Judge Sullivan points out that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ended the emergency on which the policy was based in May, and the Administration hasn’t supplied a new legal rationale. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) defended the policy in this case mainly to control the time and manner of its cancellation. Another lawsuit is now at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which may also rule against Title 42.
Title 42’s end will compound a border problem already turning worse. Summer usually marks the high point for illegal crossings, but this year migration has kept surging. The number of migrants detained at the border has risen for the past three months and in October it passed 230,000, the third most in DHS history.
Worse, the U.S. has lost Mexico’s aid against migrants. Title 42 was preceded by the Remain in Mexico policy, a deal struck by President Trump to keep asylum claimants south of the border while they awaited U.S. court dates. The Supreme Court in June let Mr. Biden end that policy, and now Mexico says no mas: Its government said last month it won’t hold migrants under the program.
Mr. Biden has been mum about all this and offers no reason to believe a replacement policy is coming. Senate Democrats such as
Maggie Hassan
and
Catherine Cortez Masto,
who threatened over the summer to codify Title 42, also seem to have made their peace with a vacant U.S. border policy now that they’ve won re-election.
It’s a shame because rising illegal crossings are the biggest political impediment to the immigration bargain Democrats claim to want. “Our ultimate goal,” Sen.
Chuck Schumer
said Wednesday, is “a path to citizenship for all 11 million” migrants in the U.S. A necessary step would be to remind the President that the public demands an orderly, legal flow and not the unchecked crossings that undermine support for an immigration policy compromise.
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the November 19, 2022, print edition.
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