The policy known as “Title 42” will be discontinued on May 23rd after being in effect for more than two years, according to the country's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

This policy, adopted by the Trump administration at the beginning of the pandemic, allows immigration agents to quickly expel illegal cross-border people, without the act being configured as formal deportation, with the aim of preventing the spread of the Covid-19 virus in migrant detention facilities. This policy was twice extended by President Joe Biden and over 1.7 million people have been evicted under this provision.

Biden was under pressure from his party to end the controversial order, with critics arguing that its public health benefits have not outweighed the harm to immigrants' rights, as we previously reported on the Latin Observatory website.

While Biden promised to roll back Trump-era immigration policies while in office, Title 42 was extended in mid-2021 and again in January due to the Delta and Omicron variants, respectively.

The decision to terminate the policy is due to the more favorable prospects in public health in the face of the pandemic and after consultation with the Department of Homeland Security, according to the CDC in the BBC News report.

“After considering current public health conditions and an increased availability of tools to fight Covid-19 (such as highly effective vaccines and therapeutics), the CDC Director has determined that an Order suspending the right to introduce migrants into the United States is no longer necessary”, according to publication.

The announcement was welcomed by immigration rights advocates such as Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal and activist Murad Awawdeh of the New York Immigration Coalition, according to the BBC.

However, some Republican and Democratic politicians have expressed concern about the announced repeal of “Title 42” as it could spur an increase in the number of immigrants on the US-Mexico border.

James Comer, a Republican Kentucky congressman, called the move "reckless", and Democratic senators Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema, from the border state of Arizona, said they were skeptical that a plan was in place to address migrant applications at the border.

The DHS director said Friday his agency had a strategy to “manage any potential increase in the number of migrants encountered at our border”.

Check out our review this week for a more in-depth discussion of this topic.