On April 1st, the government of Joe Biden announced the easing of the application of the law known as Title 42 that barred legal immigration requests at the border with Mexico to curb the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. The decision will take effect on May 23rd, and the government hopes that immigration authorities at the border can adapt to the expected large influx of asylum seekers in these seven weeks.

The legislation in question was created during World War II to prevent the introduction of infectious diseases into the country, restricting access to foreign persons and goods due to the existence of any contagious disease. This measure was reintroduced in March 2020 by former President Donald Trump to face the advance of the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite the health emergency, it is widely used to block the entry of immigrants, especially from Mexico and Central American countries, across the country's southern border.

Since it was adopted, the application of Title 42 has been heavily criticized by social organizations that defend immigration and sectors of the Democratic Party. However, Joe Biden's administration was unable to get rid of this Trump legacy until this month, even because it faced restrictions imposed by the Supreme Court in this regard. It is worth remembering that, on December 8th, here at the Latino Observatory, we addressed the problem of this policy, also known as "Remain in Mexico," in which people who apply for asylum in the United States must remain in Mexican territory and wait for the audience with a border town judge. Between March 2020 and February 2022, US authorities expelled 1.7 million migrants at the Mexico border under Title 42. In principle, scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) opposed the policy, arguing that there was no legitimate public health rationale. Yet, the Trump administration reinforced the order, whose central objective was more to stop immigration than to contain the advance of the pandemic.

An article published in The New York Times on December 2nd, 2021 called for a new stance on the part of Joe Biden, as he failed to lift the restrictive measure created by Donald Trump. At the time, Eileen Sullivan wrote: “The Biden administration is expected to soon lift a Trump-era public health rule that uses the coronavirus pandemic to justify quickly turning back migrant families at the border with Mexico. According to the government, the rule was needed to keep the virus from spreading in American communities and holding facilities, where migrants seeking asylum are typically held for days. But immigration and human rights advocates say the rule, known as Title 42, has been used improperly as an enforcement tool, forcing migrants to return to dangerous situations. They have pressed President Biden to lift the rule, which was put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some of the groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have sued the government to stop it from using the rule to expel migrant families.” 

The subject of immigration is very controversial in the United States. There is widespread resistance from a significant portion of the population against the influx of new immigrants, notable voters from the Republican Party. On the other hand, among the Democratic-leaning Latino/Hispanic community, there is a strong demand for immigration legislation to loosen restrictions and adopt measures to regularize the situation of millions of “undocumented” people living illegally in the country.

Because it is pretty controversial, the topic is the subject of fierce disputes between Democrats and Republicans. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), linked to the Democratic Party, issued a note signed by its president, Dr. Raul Ruiz (CA-D): “Today is a bright spot in our nation’s history with the end of the Trump-initiated Title 42 policy. The CHC repeatedly called for the end of this policy, which was fueled by Trump’s anti-immigrant hate and fear agenda that used the pandemic as an excuse to deny asylum seekers their legal right to due process. The pandemic has slowed, there are effective testing and quarantine protocols in place, and vaccines are readily available. Ending the Trump-era Title 42 policy means that all people fleeing for their lives, whether from a Russian dictator or drug cartels, will have their legal right to due process and their cases heard for asylum protection status without fear of being thrown back to the exact dangers from which they fled.”

For their part, the Republicans reacted vigorously. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis condemned the termination of Title 42 by the Biden administration despite fears, in his opinion, of another mass influx of illegal immigrants across the southern border. According to a note released on April 1st: “Joe Biden’s reckless border policies have allowed more than 2 million foreigners to enter our country illegally via the southern border. Revoking Title 42 authority will supercharge the already skyrocketing flow of illegal aliens, increasing drug, human, and sex trafficking. Biden is failing miserably to faithfully execute the law and is violating his oath of office.”

In the same day, Texas Governor Greg Abbott also released a statement on this matter: "President Biden’s open-border policies are an unmitigated disaster for national security. His recklessness has forced the State of Texas to take unprecedented steps to fill the gaps—including deploying Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and over 10,000 Texas National Guard soldiers, jailing illegal immigrants who are charged with trespassing, and becoming the first state ever to build a wall to secure the border. Instead of listening to the millions of Americans that his administration has endangered—and instead of enforcing immigration laws passed by Congress—President Biden has chosen to jeopardize the safety and security of those very Americans he swore to protect and defend by ending Title 42 expulsions.”

If, on the one hand, Biden manages to assuage criticism from the progressive sectors of the Democratic Party, he is facing strong opposition from the most conservative sectors of his party, especially from two Democratic senators who systematically block his initiatives: Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ). However, another senator also strongly opposed the measure, Mark Kelly from Arizona. On April 1st, Senators Kelly and Sinema released a very tough note against the decision to revoke Title 42: “This is the wrong decision. It’s unacceptable to end Title 42 without a plan and coordination in place to ensure a secure, orderly, and humane process at the border”, said senator Mark Kelly. “Prematurely ending Title 42 without a comprehensive, workable plan would put at risk the health and safety of Arizona communities and migrants. I’ll continue pushing for transparency and accountability from the Administration to help secure the border, keep Arizona communities safe, and ensure migrants are treated fairly and humanely.”

For Republicans, revocation measures to the containment of immigration arise as one more element in wear and tear Joe Biden and the Democratic Party, especially with the communities of the border states with Mexico, such as California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. The fear of illegal immigration is being worked on alongside other problems such as inflation, rising fuel prices, and the Ukraine war.

Election polls project a widespread defeat for the Democratic party in the November 2022 mid-term elections. Even an event like the war in Ukraine, which would generally unite the Democratic and Republican parties, helped improve the incumbent president's standing. Joe Biden's unpopularity rates were over 50%, and his approval ratings were around 42% before and after the war started.

Another interesting question concerns to the difficulty that Democrats may encounter in the mid-term election. Kelly's and Sinema's criticisms try to assuage their voters' discontent with the repeal of Title 42. 

It is important to consider another element that will play in favor of a Republican victory: the redistricting process. Except for California, the redistricting process has hurt Democrats in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. According to the Arizona 2010 map, Democrats secured three seats in Congress, and another would be highly competitive. The other five were predominantly Republican. Already on the 2022 map, Democrats lose one seat to Republicans. In New Mexico, Democrats had two seats secured. The third was highly competitive. In the new map, the Democrats have only one seat assured, and the other two were competitive, that is, without a defined trend. In Texas, in addition to the state gaining two more seats in Congress, the redistricting was done to ensure greater competitiveness for Republican candidates. As of 2010, there were 14 strongly Republican districts, and that number jumped to 24 in 2022. Democrats had 8 seats guaranteed, but in 2022 it jumped to 13. There, only one district is now highly competitive.

From the current conjuncture, from a purely electoral perspective, we can predict that Joe Biden's measure “robbed Peter to pay Paul." In other words: when he managed to pay off part of his electoral debt with the progressive sectors of the Democratic Party, he began to face a series of resistance from the most conservative sectors of society, who fear the effects of a large wave of migration. In an age in which “online” information creates a parallel truth, this theme will be explored to exhaustion by the most radical sectors of the Republican Party.