Here's what you need to know about Title 42, the pandemic-era policy that quickly sends migrants to Mexico
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Loading... - Chiara Accardi
- 29 Apr 2022
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For the past two years, the federal government has turned away migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, including those who are seeking asylum, using a public emergency health order known as Title 42. It was launched by the Trump administration at the start of the pandemic and continued under the Biden administration.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently announced that it plans to end Title 42 on May 23 because COVID-19 cases have decreased and vaccines are widely available. But that date is now in question because of Republican-led lawsuits aimed at keeping the policy in place.
What started as an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19 across the border has turned into a fierce debate over whether Title 42 should be continued as an immigration tool to block migrants from claiming asylum.
Here’s what you need to know about the law:
What is Title 42?
Title 42 is part of the Public Health Service Act of 1944 aimed at preventing the spread of communicable diseases in the country. According to the law, whenever the U.S. surgeon general determines there is a communicable disease in another country, health officials have the authority, with the approval of the president, to prohibit “the introduction of persons and property from such countries or places” for as long as health officials determine the action is necessary. That authority was transferred from the U.S. surgeon general to the director of the CDC in 1966.
Congress approved a similar law in 1893 during a cholera epidemic that gave the president authority to exclude people from certain countries during a public health emergency. It was used for the first time in 1929 to bar people coming from China and the Philippines during a meningitis outbreak.
Why was it activated?
The Trump administration invoked Title 42 for the first time since its creation in March 2020 as a way to help stop the spread of COVID-19 in immigrant detention centers, where many migrants are placed after they arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border.
