Biden uses tool from Trump's playbook against migrants

The Biden administration is relying on a contested Trump-era policy as it disperses thousands of Haitian migrants along the US-Mexico border in and around the small South Texas city of Del Rio.

- Ben Fox

Much to the dismay of migrant advocates, the Department of Homeland Security is invoking the public health law known as Title 42 to quickly take Haitians into custody and fly them back to their troubled homeland, denying them an opportunity to make a claim to stay in the US by seeking asylum.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said that most of the Haitians removed from the Del Rio encampment have been expelled under the authority of Title 42, angering human rights activists and others who had hoped to see the policy ended by an administration that has otherwise sought to reverse much of Trump’s immigration agenda.

What is Title 42? The Title 42 of the Public Health Service Act gives federal health officials powers during a pandemic to take extraordinary measures to limit transmission of an infectious disease.

It’s not a new power. The authority has, in various forms, been around since 1893. The Trump administration invoked it in March 2020 to sweeping effect, prohibiting entry by virtually anyone from Mexico and Canada and essentially sealing the northern and southern borders.