What is “Title 42”?
Title 42 is a piece of federal legislation that deals with public health issues and gives the government the power to take emergency action – for example, to stop communicable diseases. The rule has existed for decades but was brought into use by the Trump administration in connection with the 2020 covid pandemic. The purpose was said to be to stop the spread of covid-19.
With Title 42, US immigration authorities have been able to turn migrants back at the border, without examining their asylum claims.
Why is it being lifted right now?
When Joe Biden became president in 2021, he and his administration chose to maintain the practice of the exception rule. Title 42 was supposed to be repealed in 2022, but the U.S. Supreme Court put a stop to that — after several Republican state attorneys general urged the court to keep the special border rules.
In April of this year, Joe Biden announced that he had signed a law ending the national emergency imposed in the country as a result of the pandemic. The national state of emergency ends in the United States on May 11, and with that the special border rules also cease to apply.
What happens now?
When the clock has passed midnight, the US reverts to a set of regulations called “Title 8”. Migrants who claim grounds for asylum must have these examined and may be sent back only when and if they have been refused.
At the same time, Title 8 means harsher penalties for those who illegally try to cross the border – for example, multi-year bans from re-entering the country.
The number of migrants is now expected to increase sharply and the United States has introduced several new measures that are intended to speed up the asylum process.