Biden White House stands behind Title 42 decision amid party revolt

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  Facing a growing rebellion from within the Democratic Party, the White House is standing behind its decision to end on May 23 a Trump-era deportation policy for migrants encountered at the southern border.

That decision to end the use of the public health order known as Title 42 has placed President Joe Biden in a political bind. The president is attempting to balance his long-standing promise to revoke the policy — which, under the banner of fighting the Covid pandemic, justified the immediate expulsion of migrants without due process — right as Republicans weaponize immigration before the midterms and as a growing number of Democratic senators want restrictions to remain in place for fear that the administration is not prepared for a summer surge of migrants to the border.

“It’s not like we’ve been hiding the ball on this,” a White House official said, speaking freely about the state of play on condition of anonymity. “This is not a policy to applaud or defend or anything. It simply is a public health directive on whether there is a public health risk associated with processing migrants or not. The [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] made a determination that there wasn’t and that we’re OK to move forward with lifting it on May 23.”

In interviews with POLITICO, immigrant advocates, lawmakers and former administration officials urged the White House to stay the course and to better communicate its plan to lawmakers and necessary stakeholders along the border. Several urged Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to go to the border ahead of the May 23 policy change to demonstrate the coordinated response being prepared by government agencies.

The White House is “definitely not going to reverse their decision on Title 42,” said Kerri Talbot, deputy director of the advocacy group Immigration Hub. “We would really urge them, instead, to more clearly roll out their border plan. There’s really a communications issue here where they have detailed plans, but they just haven’t really concretely laid them out for Congress.”

There had been internal divisions within the White House over whether the Title 42 authority should have been ended. And questions about whether the administration would reverse itself emerged in recent days amid reports from Axios that it was considering a delay of the May 23 deadline and that officials were worried about being overwhelmed by a spike of migrants at the border. The White House has suggested to lawmakers that they pass legislation to change the CDC’s authority on the public health order themselves if they were inclined to. But a court injunction could end up, at least for a time, solving the Catch-22 for Biden. Earlier this month, a number of Republican-led states sued the administration to prevent the termination of Title 42, and a hearing is expected before the end of May.

“The little secret here is they don’t think they’re actually going to have to end Title 42,” said an immigration advocate familiar with the White House’s thinking. “They’re expecting to lose a lawsuit that’s going to force them to keep it in place.”

Prior to the CDC’s announcement that the use of Title 42 was no longer warranted, Republicans sought to label Biden as a proponent of open borders. Vulnerable Senate Democrats were quick to distance themselves from the White House, too, with at least nine publicly calling for an extension of the Title 42 authority, which has been used since early 2020. Democrats have accused the White House of moving forward without a plan to handle expected seasonal increases of people at the border, and Senate Democratic aides say the administration hasn’t provided concrete details.

The White House official pushed back on these accusations, referring to the DHS fact sheet that was released last month, calling it “comprehensive.” The official reiterated that it was up to the CDC to make that determination down the road but that at this point, the CDC was moving forward with lifting TItle 42.

“It all depends on the public health risk, that’s up to them to decide. What is the public health risk associated with X, Y and Z?,” the official told POLITICO. “That authority lives with the CDC. I recognize that there are people in our party that want to extend it. That’s great. If they think that the CDC shouldn’t have that authority, there’s a legislative mechanism to do that.”