Section number 265 of Title number 42 of the 1944 United States Code provides: "Suspension of entry and import from defined places to prevent the spread of communicable diseases." During Donald Trump's term in 2020, this clause was used to prohibit the entry of migrants into the United States, in the face of the pandemic crisis faced by the world at the time. Said Title grants the government, in particular the General Surgeon, upon the approval of the President, the authority to make this emergency change. However, since its activation in 2020, this measure has been used to expel migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border more than 2.8 million times, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. During his election campaign, current President Joe Biden promised to end this measure implemented by the previous government. Fulfilling his promise in just the third year of his term, the end of Title 42 took place on May 11. This text seeks to analyze the impacts of the pandemic and this protective measure on immigration, especially for Latino migrants, who benefit from the end of the exceptional period of migration policies generated by the health crisis.

1 - Latino Immigration on the US-Mexico Border

Latino immigration on the border between the United States and Mexico has been a complex and multifaceted phenomenon throughout history. The Latin American migratory flow towards the United States is intrinsically linked to the search for economic opportunities and better living conditions. Poverty, lack of employment, violence and political instability in many Latin American countries are determining factors in this process. The reasons behind this massive migration are deeply rooted in socioeconomic, political and historical issues, which cannot be fully analyzed in a few pages.

Since colonial times, the US-Mexico border has been permeated by significant population movements. The implementation of stricter migration policies in recent decades and the increased presence of drug trafficking in the region have contributed to making this border a place of constant tension. In the political sphere, the issue of Latino immigration on the US-Mexico border is the subject of disagreements between the two main US political parties. Democrats generally defend a more humanitarian approach, seeking solutions that involve regularization and protection for immigrants, while Republicans tend to adopt a more restrictive stance and emphasize border security, contrary to the influx of new migrants.

In a previousanalysis we observed the impact that the descendants of Latino migrants had in the mid-term elections - the Midterms - of 2022. Consequently, it is possible to observe that the weight that the subject of immigration carries is growing, mainly with the several new Latino legislators. Gabe Vasquez, congressman for the 2nd district of New Mexico, for example, said during his campaign in 2022: “Title 42 was a short-term solution to a health crisis, and it was never intended to be a long-term solution to the immigration or border control. We have extreme GOP members like Representative Yvette Herrel who ideologically refuse to sit down with Democrats and find solutions to one of the most complicated problems in our country, immigration.”

Para compreender melhor a relação política e partidária com o tema da Imigração, em seguida exploraremos a relação de Donald Trump, grande expoente do Partido Republicano e representante de seu pensamento, com o tema da imigração, para compreender o impacto das políticas migratórias implementadas durante o seu mandato, especialmente a utilização do Título 42.

In order to better understand the political and partisan relationship with the issue of Immigration, we will then explore the relationship of Donald Trump, a great exponent of the Republican Party and representative of his thinking, with the issue of immigration, to understand the impact of the migration policies implemented during his mandate, especially the use of Title 42.

2- Immigration in the Trump Era: Us vs. Them.

Donald Trump, former president of the United States, popularized and exported during his campaign and later during his four years in office a policy model that influenced the right and world conservatism. With its rhetoric based on “America First”, the “Trumpist” model is isolationist, anti-immigration, has neoliberal economic policies and uses algorithms and “half-truths” in its favor on social networks. The model was the phenomenon of modernization of a former conservative, libertarian, nationalist and often xenophobic and chauvinist political elite. Although this text deals exclusively with Latino immigration to the United States, notably altered by the change in Title 42, it is important to understand the sentiment and ideology that supported the public policies of the Trump administration, which discern the Latino community as refugees, asylum seekers or waiting for the immigration bureaucracy.

For this, one must understand the idea of ​​the “other” that Trump revived in the West, an idea of ​​an enemy in the different, which needs the coming together of the American people so that their spirit, their wills prevail and for “America to be great again”. In this context, the Latin American community, in particular the Mexican 'neighbors', are often treated as the ones responsible for a lack of jobs, an increase in robberies, thefts or shootings. In addition to affecting the popular imagination and resulting in greater violence against Latinos when they manage to emigrate, this type of discourse also affects the establishment of public policies to prevent migrants from entering the southern border of the country. Here are some of Trump's top immigration policies:

●     Through executive orders 13767 and 13768, signed by then-President Donald Trump in January 2017, it was determined the built of a wall on the US-Mexico border and the summary deportation of undocumented immigrants who tried to cross it, by first order, and the expanding on the number of immigrants for deportation based on criminal charges; and the cancellation of federal subsidies to sanctuary cities, cities that do not report the immigration status of their citizens to the federal government. The US judiciary vetoed this last measure based on the country's Constitution.

●     One of the main tools used to monitor immigration was the Secure Communities (S-Comm) program, also reactivated through Executive Order 13768. This program allows the fingerprints of any detained person to be entered into the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) system which can lead to the deportation of undocumented immigrants, even if they have not been convicted of crimes. The program had been suspended in 2014 during the Obama administration, as it violated civil rights and involved everyone present in the home of an undocumented individual at the time of an ICE action.

●     Another controversial measure was the "zero tolerance" policy towards irregular immigration at the border, implemented by the Trump administration. Under this policy, all adult immigrants detained for crossing the border irregularly would be prosecuted, resulting in the separation of many families as parents were detained and children sent to shelters or government custody. This policy generated widespread controversy and criticism at the national and international level. In response to public pressure, President Trump issued an executive order in June 2018 to end the practice of family separation, directing that families be kept together during border detention.

Finally, in the last year of his term, in the year of the beginning of the pandemic and the universal recommendation of social isolation, Donald Trump, through section number 265 of title 42 of the U.S. Code, took yet another measure to make immigration more difficult, on March 21, 2020, claiming that immigration to the United States would, at the time, be a risk of contamination for citizens of the country. Even though it is a fundamentally sound policy and met with little criticism at the time, it was responsible for pushing migrants across the border nearly 3 million times, as what was meant to be an emergency measure and yet remained in place for three years. “Title 42”, the name given to the measure, will be discussed below.

     3 - Title 42

Based on the Public Health Service Act - initially implemented in the United States in 1944 against the flu pandemic that was plaguing the world - Title 42, like its predecessor, empowered US authorities to immediately expel immigrants from the north-American territory, being able to ignore the often time-consuming and bureaucratic processes generally necessary to process immigrants, being able, with the use of this clause, even to deny the procedure that allows a foreigner to seek asylum. And while there was reluctance from the Trump administration to adopt the other measures recommended by the CDC in the Covid pandemic, the use of Title 42 was swift, closing the border to migrants and preventing asylum to those who planned to apply for it or even those fleeing from persecutions.

Under Title 42, found immigrants were sent back to their countries of origin. US Customs and Border Protection data shows that the Act has been used for this purpose more than 2.8 million times since it went into effect in March 2020. Of this total, two million occurred in the 2021-2022 fiscal year , that is, in the Democratic government, since the policy was maintained by the current president, Joe Biden - even though he carried out his presidential campaign under the promise of modifying Trump's anti-immigrant policies. At the time of writing this analysis, we are in the third year of his mandate and Title 42 has just fallen. Joe Biden's immigration policy and the possible reasons for the delay in fulfilling his promise will be further explored in the next part of this analysis.

“After more than three years and more than two million evictions of people who were exercising their human right to seek safety, Title 42 finally ends. What should be a day of celebration is actually the beginning of new measures that threaten the rights of these people seeking safety,” said Paul O’Brien, Executive Director of Amnesty International in the United States. This is because, after Title 42 is finalized, the country resumes Title 8 - the migration policy that was in force before the Covid-19 health crisis.

Title 8 dictates a longer time to process immigrants found at the border, allowing them to seek asylum in the United States, remaining in detention units - without considering, of course, that the centers will quickly reach their maximum capacity and these people will be forced to live in inhumane and unsanitary conditions. However, new regulations implemented by the Biden administration have made things a little more difficult, making people who enter the United States illegally ineligible, as well as requiring an immigrant to prove that he has sought asylum in other countries and had these applications denied before crossing the border, as already worked by the Latino Observatory.

4 – Joe Biden’s government immigration policies.

During the course of this text, we have highlighted the importance of immigration for US policy, as well as the relevance of this subject for the country's citizens. In addition, we understand the relationship between Donald Trump and conservatives on this crucial issue by examining the policies adopted by his administration. Among these policies, we highlight the so-called "Title 42", created in the midst of the state of health emergency during the Covid-19 pandemic, whose impact on immigrants in the United States, especially the Latino community on the border with Mexico, has been widely observed. However, the current administration, led by Joe Biden, has recently ended this policy.

Looking at the facts alone, it is not surprising that Joe Biden ended this measure. In addition to this border security policy resembling one of the Republican party, rival of Biden's Democratic party, for making it difficult for families to seek asylum within the United States, it was also his campaign promise while still a candidate. “If I am elected president, we will immediately end Trump's attack on the dignity of immigrant communities. We will restore our morale to the world and our historic role as a safe haven for refugees and asylum seekers.” If Biden has been in the presidency of the United States since January 2021, what was the reason for waiting more than two years to finalize the policy that was supposed to be of an emergency nature? To answer that question, it's important to look at the Biden administration's immigration policy as a whole.

Since the beginning of his term, President Joe Biden has implemented a series of measures to reverse the immigration restrictions established by the previous administration of Donald Trump. These actions are aimed at increasing refugee admissions, 'easing' deportations for unauthorized migrants who entered the country as children, lifting the “Public charge” rule that denies Greencards to immigrants who are “ likely” to become a burden to the State using public benefits, such as lifting visa restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Specifically on the measure currently being discussed, the end of “Title 42” has already had three other end dates set by the Biden government, according to the Washington Office for Latin America (WOLA). In July 2021, just over six months after vaccinations began in the United States, the Biden Government had the first attempt to change the exceptional immigration status. It gave up upon an increase in arrivals at the border.

In May 2022, the Biden government, through the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tried again to formalize the end of Title 42, as it understood that the United States would no longer be in a situation of exceptional health crisis that the measure presupposes. At the time, in the process initiated by the attorney general of Arizona and later joined by his Texas counterpart, the federal judge of Louisiana – who had been appointed to the post by Donald Trump – blocked the attempt to finalize Title 42, arguing that the Biden government violated the administrative law by announcing its plan to discontinue the measure without proper regulation and procedure, which would be costly for the states that would receive the migrants. In December 2022, Washington District Judge John G. Roberts temporarily suspended Title 42 and planned for it to end five weeks later. In the same month, the Supreme Court of the United States decided to maintain the health emergency policy.

Thus, we can observe that there was an attempt by the Biden government to fulfill the promise, but such is the disagreement between different political parties that exercise strength in immigration decisions, that often those who occupy the seats with greater political power are unable to change something that was in their plans. Despite this, in January 2023, in an official statement from the White House, Biden's term announced new measures to increase security and reduce illegal immigration at the US border, including imposing consequences for those who try to enter illegally.

Unlike the previous Republican administration, measures were also implemented to expand the legal pathways for regular migration, which according to the statement also aim to streamline the processing of immigrants and implement online scheduling systems to reduce overcrowding at ports of entry. In addition, actions are being taken to combat smuggling networks and support border communities.

It is undeniable that Title 42 was an important chapter in the history of immigration, but it was not the only one. It is necessary to understand that the Title, by itself, does not change the core of immigration. Economic conditions and the spread of insecurity in countries like Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico and others in Central America make their inhabitants look for escape routes and safe areas, refuge - or asylum. Most of them seek this protection in the United States and find themselves undesirable there. The end of Title 42 does not mean that immigration will increase, immigration rules just leave the exceptional moment they were due to the health crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Immigrants at the border will no longer be expelled from their search for shelter, but they will still have to follow increasingly bureaucratic processes and may have their future as citizens of the United States still far from their realities. Finally, it remains for us to observe what will be the next steps of the Biden government regarding Title 8, the law now in force for the country's border and immigration situation, to understand how will the Latino community that emigrates towards the United States with the expectation of a better life for themselves and their descendants be treated.