Trump Warns US ‘Will Be Deluged by Illegal Immigration’ After Biden’s ‘Foolhardy’ Repeal of Title 42

Donald Trump has lashed out at US President Joe Biden for the repeal of Title 42, a COVID pandemic-era border restriction, warning that it will lead to a drastic increase in illegal immigration into the country.

Speaking at his Save America rally in Michigan on Saturday night, Trump claimed that under his presidency, the country had the “most secure border in the history of our nation”. He said that because of Biden's “‘foolhardy” repeal of Title 42, the US “will be deluged by illegal immigration”.

“We’re being invaded by millions and millions of people,” Trump added, claiming that “10 to 12 million people” would flood the country if Title 42 were to be repealed. This may add to what the 45th president said has been the “largest number of illegal immigrants” entering America.

His remarks came in the wake of indications from Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centres for Disease Control (CDC), and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, that as of late May the CDC will terminate Title 42.

“With this termination, I hereby determine that the danger of further introduction, transmission or spread of COVID-19 into the United States from covered non-citizens […] has ceased to be a serious danger to the public health and therefore the continuation of the August Order, and all previous orders issued under the same authority, is no longer necessary to protect public health," Walensky wrote in an agency directive issued on Friday.

The "August Order" cited by Walensky refers to an updated version of the Title 42 directive issued by the CDC last year.

The CDC said that its termination of Title 42 will be implemented "in consultation with" the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) by 23 May, giving the agency "time to implement appropriate COVID-19 mitigation protocols, such as scaling up a programme to provide COVID-19 vaccinations to migrants, and to prepare to resume regular migration under Title 8".

The Trump administration enacted Title 42 at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020, using it to justify the expulsion of more than 80 percent of illegal immigrants caught trying to enter the country. Under the Biden administration, that figure dropped to 55 percent.

Critics of Title 42 have dismissed it as a "racist" and "unjust" policy, whereas supporters upheld the policy as one of the few remaining means available to the government to expel illegal migrants quickly. Title 42 enables the border patrol to remove migrants from the country immediately without allowing them to apply for refugee status.

Meanwhile, the White House has admitted that there will be an “influx” of border crossings as a consequence of scrapping Title 42.

“We are planning for a number of contingencies, and we have every expectation that when the CDC ultimately decides it’s appropriate to lift Title 42, there will be an influx of people to the border,” White House communications director Kate Bedingfield said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, in turn, have been warned to prepare for illegal border crossings to triple in the wake of Title 42 being lifted.

In March, 164,973 migrants were seized at the US southern border, 7 percent more than had been taken in February. For the whole of 2021, border patrol arrests reached an all-time high of 1.7 million, according to the DHS’ estimates.

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