Democrats face tough questions as a frontier saga enters a new chapter

The Biden administration is grappling with the political ramifications of the end of Title 42, a pandemic policy introduced during the Trump administration that rejected most migrants from the border. I spoke with Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Michael D. Shear, who recently reported on the government’s divisions over immigration policy.

Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

LEAH ASKARINAM: Why don’t you start by telling us about Title 42. Why are we hearing so much about it now?

ZOLAN KANNO YOUTH: Title 42 is a public health measure that the Trump administration — and I don’t think it’s talked about enough, actually — tried to put in place before the pandemic in an effort to quickly send migrants away. We now know it as a border policy that the Biden administration has relied on to reject most asylum seekers.

MICHAEL D. SCHEER: Right — I think readers of The Times will recall that President Donald Trump and Stephen Miller, the architect of his immigration agenda, were always looking for ways to limit immigration.

And so they found this provision in the public health code that allowed them to say, “Let’s deny people the opportunity to actually apply for asylum on public health grounds,” essentially to keep disease out of the country. They tried to put that in place before the pandemic and couldn’t, but when the pandemic came along it was quite natural for them to try and use it.

And there were many immigration proponents who believed that, while there was clearly a pandemic, the real intentions behind the Trump administration to put it in place were really dark motives, meant to deprive the migrants Trump had criticized so harshly. country, and to use the public health rule as an excuse.

CANNO YOUNG PEOPLE: Biden has often campaigned to break with the Trump administration’s restrictive border policy. This was a policy he didn’t mention very often during the campaign. The government has relied on the policy until this month, when it said it would lift it on May 23.

ASKARINAM: How is it enforced? It’s not an administrative act, is it?

TO SHAVE: Title 42 is a large section of the United States Code that spans tens of thousands of pages of regulations and federal law. The relevant part of title 42 is the public health section.

At one point, Congress passed a series of laws that essentially delegate the power to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to restrict entry into the U.S. when the agency’s director believes that an emergency on the planet. area of public health would be exacerbated by allowing people into the country.

Then the rest of the government, including Border Patrol agents, steps in to enforce it. It is a very broad power that has been used very little.

CANNO YOUNG PEOPLE: For example, when I went to the border in 2019, a family of asylum seekers would step onto US soil and Border Patrol agents would effectively take them into custody. The family can spend days in a detention center before finally being released into the country or handed over to Immigration and Customs.

With Title 42, the government is essentially rejecting those people. Some may be questioned for a while and it has been debated to what extent they can make their case for protection, but for the most part they are turned away and head back south.

ASKARINAM: You both reported on the longevity of Title 42, breaking the original news that Trump invoked and wrote about border politics under both Trump and Biden. What was it like taking that route?

TO SHAVE: It’s been a very interesting arc. If you go back to the beginning, there was an awful lot of suspicion about why the Trump administration did it. This was at the very beginning of the pandemic, and many comparisons were made to the early days of the Trump administration when it imposed the travel ban on people from several predominantly Muslim countries.

Fast forward to the midterm, with Biden in office and the pandemic still raging, and there was more of a debate. A lot of people, including government officials, took a second look at the title 42 issue and said, “You know, this isn’t crazy.” If you have the Delta variant and the Omicron variant, it’s not crazy to think that you would have some restrictions to keep people out. It was clear there were dissidents, some who disagreed quite strongly.

And now it’s come full circle, where the pandemic may be easing a little bit and a lot of people are getting vaccinated. People ask again, how do you let in people from other places in the world, but you stick to the rationale of Title 42 and say we don’t let in people who cross the border on foot?

CANNO YOUNG PEOPLE: Mike, I’m curious what you think. Was there an immigration policy that — if your measure of success is lowering border crossings and turning around asylum seekers — has served its purpose more effectively than Title 42?

TO SHAVE: The thing about Title 42 is that it’s the most blunt, all-or-nothing policy. Most of the Trump administration’s other attempts have been complicated policy changes with a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo.

Title 42 is much more black or white. It generally doesn’t say that you have to be this kind of immigrant or that kind of immigrant or come from this country or that country or be afraid of this or not be afraid of this. It just says we don’t let anyone in. The Trump administration has finally found a method that could not be explained away in court.

CANNO YOUNG PEOPLE: Which makes it even more confusing that the Biden administration embraced it. It is not necessarily surprising that a Democratic administration would rely on deterrence or restrictions. But it’s surprising given how blunt these policies have been, especially after months of Democrats criticizing the Trump administration for embracing policies that subjected migrants to violence, assault and kidnapping south of the border.

It’s also worth noting that Title 42’s ability to lower the border crossings has suffered a setback. In the past, migrants were held for long periods while waiting to request protection, but using this rule to quickly send them away had the unintended effect of increasing their chances of crossing the border illegally. Many migrants at the border have been repeat offenders in recent years.

You’re seeing a real turnaround here, where it’s not just moderate Democrats, but even someone like Beto O’Rourke, a leading critic of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, turning their attention to the Biden administration for lack of preparation. . It’s a political quagmire for the Democrats.

ASKARINAM: So what does the Title 42 story reveal about the challenges politicians face in terms of immigration policy?

CANNO YOUNG PEOPLE: I think what Title 42 shows, and what Mike and I would hear from our sources, is that we knew what the Trump administration wanted when it came to the border: kick people out, use maximum deterrence – even when it gets brutal – to keep people out of the country.

While the Trump administration was very clear where it stood, I’m not sure the Democrats know exactly where they stand on the border. Campaigning against Trump’s policies was one thing. It’s a lot harder once you’re in position and you have to have a position of your own.

TO SHAVE: Yes, I agree with all of that. Title 42 underlines what has been the problem for a long time: it’s not just about finding solutions – which is hard enough – but it defines what you really think the problem is.

Trump and his allies have defined the problem in one way. Someone on the Democratic side might describe the problem as a lack of ability to give an asylum seeker a quick answer as to whether or not they should be allowed to stay in the United States permanently.

Still, someone else might say we need to decide: do we want to let people in? And if so, let’s find out what kind of person deserves to be here. Do we want someone to enter the country who is fleeing political persecution? Yes. What about someone who is on the run from gang violence? What about someone who is fleeing poverty? What about someone who is on the run from sexual assault?

Until the country really struggles with all this, it will remain a mess at the border.