WASHINGTON – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and nine Republican members of the Senate sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to reverse course and keep the Title 42 removal authority in place.
“We shudder to think about how much worse the situation at the border would have been over the past three years had it not been for the deterrent effect of Title 42,” the lawmakers said.
“Over the past three years, the Title 42 order has been a lifeline to the men and women of Border Patrol, who have been working heroically 24 hours a day to secure our southern border amid the worst border crisis in our lifetimes. Even with Title 42 in place, illegal crossings at the border have been at all-time highs,” wrote the senators.
The senators noted that, since the initial order was issued in March 2020, the authority has been used 2.7 million times, including 1.5 million times in just the last 18 months. Of the 2.3 million encounters in fiscal year 2022, more than 40 percent were processed under Title 42.
The senators also took issue with and criticized the proposed rule the Biden Administration has issued, titled “The Circumvention of Lawful Pathways” to address the issue when Title 42 expires.
“Nothing in this [Biden] rule prevents aliens from making frivolous asylum claims. Instead, under the terms of the rule, aliens are encouraged to schedule a time to present at a port of entry through the CBP One mobile application, after which time many, if not most, will subsequently claim asylum. . . . Whether done through the CBP One mobile app or not, this gaming of our asylum system is a major pull factor that is causing the border crisis in the first place, and until your administration has a serious plan to address that, the authority Title 42 gives will still be necessary,” they explained.
“Our border remains under assault. The resources of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) remain under tremendous strain. The introduction of 13,000 encounters every day to this crisis would be the equivalent of throwing gasoline on an already raging fire,” the senators concluded.
Full text of the letter is available here.
