After immense bipartisan backlash over the decision to end Title 42, the Biden Administration has released an updated plan detailing how U.S. immigration officials are being prepared to deal with the inevitable rush of migrants once the pandemic border order is lifted.
The new memo consists of 20 pages and can be read here. This document represents the most detailed plan the Biden Administration has released, describing how it plans to deal with upwards of half a million illegal border crossers per month when Title 42 is lifted in May.
CBS News reports:
Mayorkas' memo outlined a six-part strategy: surging personnel and resources to the southern border; expanding migrant processing capacity; deportating, detaining or prosecuting some migrants; securing assistance from border organizations; cracking down on human smugglers and deterring migration across the Western Hemisphere.
Reportedly, one of the plan's more prominent components is expanding expedited removal to expel aliens who do not seek asylum or who fail initial screenings - which would not be completed by Biden Admin. bureaucrats rather than immigration judges. DHS noted that any who asks for asylum will still be able to apply for it.
Biden's new plan could alleviate some concerns from his fellow Democrats about lifting Title 42. Still, many lawmakers and experts alike are wary of how effective the plan will be given the immigration track record of both Biden and Mayorkas.
News broke earlier this week that a District Court judge in Louisiana announced that he planned to issue a temporary restraining order preventing the Biden Admin. from lifting the pandemic border order on May 23. According to a senior administration official who remains anonymous, the Biden Admin. "will comply with the court order," but added, "we really disagree with the basic premise."
"When the Title 42 order is lifted, we intend to significantly expand the use of expedited removal through our Title 8 authorities and thereby impose long-term law enforcement consequences on those who seek to cross the border without a lawful basis to do so," the official added. The official concluded by arguing that a pause in ending Title 42 is preventing DHS from "adequately preparing for the aggressive application of immigration law when the public health order expires."
Biden's new plan also calls for the detention of single adult migrants, particularly those without children, "when appropriate." So far, the administration has already ruled out the use of alien family detention, meaning crossing the border with a child is almost a sure-fire way to gain entry to the United States, news that undoubtedly brings a smile to the faces of human traffickers at the southern border.
The Biden Admin. is also reportedly asking other South and Central American countries that migrants travel through to do what they can to reduce the number of migrants reaching the southern border. "We're also asking that other countries step up and enforce their own immigration laws," said a senior administration official. "We really feel as though we need true responsibility sharing. We can't have countries, for instance, participating in controlled flow, where they're just allowing individuals to cross through without normal adjudication."
Under the plan, U.S. Customs and Border Protection will also station 23,000 of its agents along the southern border, including 600 additional officers from different government agencies. "By May 23, we will be prepared to hold approximately 18,000 noncitizens in CBP custody at any given time, up from 13,000 at the beginning of 2021, and we have doubled our ability to transport noncitizens on a daily basis, with flexibility to increase further," the memo reads.
CBS News explains where some of the 600 additional officers and authorities will come from:
Attorney General Merrick Garland told lawmakers Tuesday that both the Bureau of Prisons and U.S. Marshals Service will contribute resources to the border mission.
"To be clear, we don't do border patrolling," Garland said, noting law enforcement under the purview of the Department of Justice is not trained for immigration enforcement. "But the Bureau of Prisons is going to make buses available for the transfers that Border Patrol needs assistance for. And the Marshall Service is going to be providing additional deputy U.S. Marshals to assist CBP at the border."
The Defense Department, meanwhile, will provide "rapid contracting support for air and ground transportation," according to a senior administration official, in addition to identifying potential locations for new temporary migrant holding facilities along the southwest border.
Officials also noted the Department of National Intelligence is "coordinating intelligence gathering and helping to support and strengthen our capability to get an early warning of migrant surges as they are building."
You can read the complete CBS story here.
