MORGANTOWN – Sen. Shelley Moore Capito joined with her Senate GOP colleagues on Wednesday to once again call attention to their concerns about ending the Title 42 immigration policy.
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, called the press conference that ran for more than an hour.
“We already have a crisis at the border,” he said. “That crisis threatens to become a catastrophe.”
If Tile 42 ends, he said, it’s projected that 1.5 million to 2 million people will cross the southern border illegally this year – up from the current 1 million. And along with that will come “an unprecedented amount” of illegal drugs, particularly fentanyl.
The Border Patrol has said it will lose operational control of the border, he said. And the Department of Homeland Security estimates the current 8,000 daily illegal crossings will swell to 12,000 to 18,000.
Portman noted that a Louisiana federal judge has temporarily blocked the Biden plan to end Title 42 on May 23, but uncertainty remains as the terms haven’t been worked out. The restraining order stems from a 21-state lawsuit that West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey joined.
Portman, Capito and other senators had a conference call with DHS Secretary Alejando Mayorkas, he said, and DHS’s plan is to simply expedite how the people cross, not stop them. “That was disappointing.”
Capito said that even Senate Democrats are now imploring Biden to rethink his decision to get rid of Title 42. And some not-so-conservative media outlets are concerned too. She displayed some headlines from the Washington Post and NPR.
Mayorkas’ plan, she said, is merely moving people from the border into more central parts of the country and processing them there. “What’s that going to do? In my view, that’s ducking the media and ducking what the real numbers could be.”
Capito said, “My folks at home are worried about this.” West Virginia has the nation’s highest overdoes death rate and fentanyl is playing a central role in that.
The policy was intended to stop the spread of COVID by permitting the Border Patrol to turn away arrested illegal immigrants and asylum seekers.
Capito and Sen. Joe Manchin are co-sponsors of the Public Health and Border Security Act of 2022, which would prevent the administration from ending the Title 42 emergency authority until at least 60 days after ending the COVID-19 national emergency declaration.
Capito said Wednesday, “There’s time, Mr. President, to rethink this. There’s time for us to find a better way.”
The solutions, she said, must emphasize deterrence – such as expedited removals, quick asylum adjudication and keeping Remain in Mexico in place. DHS established Remain in Mexico in December 2018 to deter individuals without legal authorization or valid asylum claims from seeking to enter the United States by crossing the Southwest border. Asylum applicants attempting to cross the border were returned to Mexico during expedited processing of their claims rather than held in detention or paroled into the United States.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, was among Wednesday’s speakers. He noted that the CDC has urged the end of Title 42, “after considering current public health conditions and an increased availability of tools to fight COVID-19” as the CDC said in its release on the matter.
But less than two weeks later, the CDC elected to extend its airline mask mandate (an extension blocked by a federal judge), Cruz said. “The partisan hypocrisy is stunning. This is the CDC embracing open borders.”
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