Photo courtesy of Amyyfory via Wikimedia Commons.
The Biden administration’s recently proposed policy would prohibit multiple groups from migrating into country through the Southern border if passed.
By Tara Monastesse ’25
News Editor
In a joint announcement on Feb. 21, the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security described a new policy proposal from the Biden administration that would deny asylum to those entering the country illegally, as well as those who do not attempt or are unable to seek asylum in the countries they pass through as they migrate to the United States. In anticipation of the Title 42 public health order expiring on May 11, administration officials expect that the order will go into effect by May, according to The Texas Tribune. Administration officials describe the new asylum restrictions as temporary, with the expectation that they will end after two years.
Title 42 consists of a series of immigration restrictions invoked within the past few years with the stated purpose of controlling the spread of COVID-19, according to PBS NewsHour. The Texas Tribune reports that Title 42 has technically been in place since the World War II era, initially enacted as a part of the Public Health Service Act of 1944. However, it saw extensive usage by the Trump administration beginning in March 2020 as a method of enforcing stricter immigration policy. After initially defending the act, the Biden administration attempted to terminate Title 42 in the spring of 2022 and failed, as reported by CBS News. Title 42 was then declared illegal by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., on the basis of an insufficient public health justification last November. From there, Republican-led states were able to block the policy’s termination on procedural grounds, resulting in the expiration date of this May. Since 2020, Title 42 has been used to expel over 2.6 million migrants, according to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.
The Washington Post also reports that despite initially pledging to protect the asylum process, the Biden-Harris administration began enforcing stricter migration policies for asylum-seekers in early 2023, announcing on Jan. 5 a list of “new consequences for individuals who attempt to enter unlawfully.” These initiatives included an increased usage of expedited removal of individuals without legal basis to remain in the United States, as well as the possibility of a five-year ban on reentry for those individuals. The same list also describes the expansion of the Biden Administration’s “parole process,” which was previously extended from Venezuelans to individuals of Nicaraguan, Haitian and Cuban nationality. The U.S. will allow 30,000 individuals per month to enter the country and receive work authorization if they have an eligible sponsor and pass vetting and background checks. Under this policy, individuals who irregularly cross the Panama, Mexico or U.S. borders will be subject to expulsion to Mexico, which has agreed to accept 30,000 individuals a month who “fail to use these new pathways.” The administration claims that these consequences will disincentivize individuals from these four countries “from taking the dangerous journey to the southwest border of the United States and attempting to cross without authorization.”
Critics of the Feb. 21 policy announcement note that it fails to account for the reality of the situations faced by many asylum seekers. In a PBS NewsHour report, Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, said that the new immigration policy favors those who can afford to find a financial sponsor and purchase a plane ticket to the U.S., while also excluding those who cannot wait in their home countries for humanitarian parole slots due to the risks they face. While Vignarajah expressed approval of the pathways offered to migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti, she questioned what options now exist for migrants hailing from outside of those countries.
David Hernández, associate professor of Latina/o studies at Mount Holyoke, authored an op-ed for the Houston Chronicle in January detailing the Biden administration's “carrot and stick” approach to immigration policy. In an interview with Mount Holyoke News, he described this phrase as indicating “a traditional political compromise on immigration policies between pro-immigrant forces and anti-immigrant forces.”
“In today’s discussion of comprehensive immigration reform, it’s usually a form of amnesty, or regularization of status for undocumented immigrants, in exchange for further militarizing the border,” Hernández said. “And so the carrot is the benefit and the stick is the punishment in this case. With Biden’s new policy, it’s a provision of legal avenues to claim asylum in exchange for a harsh exclusion policy.”
Hernández mentioned that migrants seeking asylum must be able to afford plane tickets to the United States, oftentimes for entire family units, meaning that “only the people with the most means will be able to come.” Hernández also discussed how the current system’s incentivizing of legal pathways into the United States fails to account for the obstacles often faced by migrants. For example, the requirement to seek asylum in another country before being eligible for asylum in the United States is often impractical for Latin Americans fleeing violence.
“When you flee for your safety, you need to get out of there, fast. So then you have to stop and wait in the next country you pass through, or maybe the final country, which is Mexico, usually,” he said. “And it may even be dangerous to seek asylum at home. Let’s say you’re wanted by gang members or something like that. It’s not like you can just walk up to the embassy and they’re not going to wait for you or be at the next country over. Lots of things are possible … The plan in the ‘safer country’ agreement is neither safe nor an agreement because few countries in Latin America have strong asylum systems.”