Heather Cox Richardson, 12/18/2022
"Until last Thursday it appeared that one of the things that would make its way into the funding bill was a deal on immigration reform. Greg Sargent of the Washington Post was following the story closely and noted that by early December, Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) appeared to have hammered out a deal that offered to Democrats a path to citizenship for about 2 million “dreamers,” people who were brought to the U.S. by their parents without documentation and have never known any home but this one. It offered protections for migrant rights by providing up to $40 billion for processing those coming to the U.S. to seek asylum; the money will pay for more processing centers, more judges, and more asylum officers.
To Republicans it offered more resources for removing migrants who don’t qualify for asylum. It offered more funding for officers at the border. And it continued the Title 42 restrictions on migrants until the new processing centers were ready.
Title 42 is a law that permits the government to keep contagious diseases out of the country, and Trump put it in place in March 2020 at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, not least because it enabled him to stop considering migrants for asylum as required by U.S. and international law (Title 42 had only been used once before, in 1929, to keep ships from China and the Philippines, where there was a meningitis outbreak, from coming into U.S. ports). Extremist Republicans like using Title 42 as a way to stop immigration to this country, although technically it is an emergency rule.
But while the potential reform package drew support from conservative outlets like the Wall Street Journal editorial board, right-wing extremists opposed it, claiming that the pathway toward citizenship for dreamers would, as anti-immigrant Trump adviser Stephen Miller said, “turn the present tsunami of minor-smuggling into a biblical flood.”
As of last Thursday, the immigration deal was off the table. Republicans objected to it and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said he would not let it be attached to the funding bill even if the negotiators could hammer out the last details.
So what does this have to do with next week? On Friday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that Title 42 must end on December 21 unless the Supreme Court steps in.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under the Biden administration tried to end the rule last April, saying public health no longer warranted it. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the policy would end on May 23, permitting those who had been turned away under the policy to apply for asylum. “Let me be clear, Mayorkas said, “those unable to establish a legal basis to remain in the United States will be removed.” Nonetheless, Stephen Miller promptly said that ending Title 42 “will mean armageddon on the border. This is how nations end.”
More than 20 Republican-dominated states immediately sued the administration, insisting that Biden was trying to put in place “open border policies” rather than simply ending the pandemic-related policy. In May a Trump-appointed judge in Louisiana blocked the lifting of the rule. In November, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan vacated the rule, saying it was “arbitrary and capricious,” but gave the administration until mid-December to prepare for the change. Now a federal court has decided the rule must end this Wednesday.
What this change will look like is not clear. It does not magically create “open borders” as Republicans charge; it simply restores the law as it was before March 2020. This will have one immediate consequence: under ordinary immigration law, making an attempt to cross the border after being rejected bears a heavy penalty, which it does not under Title 42. The lack of that penalty under Title 42 meant migrants made repeated attempts, one of the factors that has so inflated the number of immigrant “encounters” in the past two years. So the change is likely to slow down repeated attempts to cross the border.
The Department of Homeland Security has released a six-point plan for managing what it expects will be an increase in the number of migrants. It will hire about 1000 additional Border Patrol processing coordinators and add another 2500 personnel—both contractors and government workers—to work in ten new “soft-sided” facilities, which will increase capacity by about a third. It will continue increasing transportation for migrants to places farther from the border, to avoid overcrowding.
But, Secretary Mayorkas says, our system is “fundamentally broken.” It is “outdated” at every level, and “in the absence of congressional action to reform the immigration and asylum systems, a significant increase in migrant encounters will strain our system even further. Addressing this challenge will take time and additional resources, and we need the partnership of Congress, state and local officials, NGOs, and communities to do so.”
And yet, for the Republicans there is an obvious political payoff to leaving the situation unaddressed.
Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO) tweeted today: “With Title 42 ending, our nation is going to be overrun with illegals worse than at just about any other point in history. Remember, this is intentional and all part of Biden’s systematic destruction of America.” Republican extremists are already demanding that the incoming Republican House majority impeach Secretary Mayorkas.
In a week when a former Republican president seems likely to make history as the first president to be referred to the Justice Department for criminal charges, it seems likely we’ll hear a great deal indeed from Republicans about the end of Title 42."
Notes:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/15/dreamers-tillis-sinema-framework-dead-trump-immigration-gop/
Twitter avatar for @gtconway3dg
The Ghost of GC 🌻 @gtconway3dg
someone's feeling the pressure
Image
3:50 PM ∙ Dec 18, 2022
152Likes16Retweets
Twitter avatar for @RonFilipkowski
Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 @RonFilipkowski
There hasn’t been justice yet, but he still has no peace. He knows.
Image
2:08 AM ∙ Dec 18, 2022
11,501Likes1,168Retweets
Twitter avatar for @RonFilipkowski
Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 @RonFilipkowski
Trump with his Sunday morning Bible verse before heading off to church.
Image
1:36 PM ∙ Dec 18, 2022
5,811Likes580Retweets
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/21/politics/jim-banks-liz-cheney-jan-6-committee/index.html
https://www.axios.com/2022/12/08/jan-6-committee-final-report-dec-21-release-plan
https://www.axios.com/2022/12/18/republican-shadow-committee-jan6-report
https://www.wsj.com/articles/republican-party-masochism-gop-house-kevin-mccarthy-andy-biggs-democrats-senate-nancy-pelosi-11671228536
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/05/finally-bipartisan-deal-help-dreamers-is-within-reach/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/08/mitt-romney-republicans-dreamers-immigration-sinema-tillis-maga-trump/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-chance-for-immigration-compromise-congress-daca-dreamers-kyrsten-sinema-thom-tillis-11670368746
Twitter avatar for @BPUnion
Border Patrol Union - NBPC @BPUnion
Rumors and preemptive attacks against us have been making the rounds recently saying NBPC is "selling out" for amnesty, which is ridiculous. We're willing to work with Senators Sinema, Tillis and anyone else who wants to end the current border crisis.
Our full statement below.
Image
6:44 PM ∙ Dec 9, 2022
737Likes283Retweets
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/judge-blocks-trump-border-rule-title-42-expelled-migrants-rcna57379
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2022/s0401-title-42.html
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/20/title-42-border-judge-ruling-migrants/
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/biden-admin-will-officially-end-title-42-covid-restriction-border-may-rcna22610
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/judge-blocks-trump-border-rule-title-42-expelled-migrants-rcna57379
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/title-42-end-covid-ban-migrants-border-immigration-rcna61803
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/15/politics/title-42-plan-biden/index.html
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2022/12/13/statement-secretary-mayorkas-planning-end-title-42
https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2022-12/22_1213_plcy_update-sw-border-security-preparedness.pdf
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/republicans-talk-chaos-border-title-42-plan-padilla/story?id=95476614
Twitter avatar for @lotsofuss
Beki Knott 🇺🇦 🇺🇦 🇺🇦 @lotsofuss
@laurenboebert No, Lauren. It’s not intentional. Biden’s doing his best to make America safe and it’s the GOP who actively helped Trump try to overthrow a legal election. The GOP doesn’t want people to have the right to vote. They make laws to suppress the vote. Democracy is at risk with GOP.
7:45 PM ∙ Dec 18, 2022
24Likes4Retweets
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3774233-house-republicans-ramp-up-calls-to-impeach-dhs-secretary-mayorkas/