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what-is-title-42,-and-what-happens-now-that-a-federal-appeals-court-has-weighed-in?

What is Title 42, and what happens now that a federal appeals court has weighed in?

Politics
crossed into the United States near El Paso, Texas, daily over the weekend, according to a senior Border Patrol official, marking what he described as a “major surge in illegal crossings” in the region. CNN’s Ed Lavandera reports.” data-details=”” data-duration=”02:19″ data-editable=”settings” data-fave-thumbnails=”{“big”:{“uri”:”https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/221213175748-lavandera-border-pkg.jpg?c=16×9&q=h_540,w_960,c_fill”},”small”:{“uri”:”https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/221213175748-lavandera-border-pkg.jpg?c=16×9&q=h_540,w_960,c_fill”}}” data-featured-video=”true” data-headline=”El Paso experiences ‘major surge’ in border crossings” data-live=”” data-medium-env=”prod” data-network-id=”” data-show-ads=”true” data-show-name=”The Lead” data-show-url=”https://www.cnn.com/shows/the-lead” data-source-html=” – Source: CNN ” data-uri=”archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/h_34110b15163a92ba0b3e6a2702f25de4-h_3dd930fc0e8491ee43000fa91fa7e601@published” data-video-id=”politics/2022/12/13/el-paso-border-crossings-lavandera-lead-pkg-vpx.cnn” data-vr-video=””>

Lavandera border pkg

El Paso experiences ‘major surge’ in border crossings

02:19 – Source: CNN

This story has been updated. An earlier version was published in November.

CNN  — 

A federal appeals court says it won’t block a lower court’s order ending Title 42.

That means the December 21 deadline for lifting the Trump-era public health restrictions still stands, and that federal officials and border communities are continuing to brace themselves for an expected increase in migrant arrivals.

Already this week El Paso had seen a significant increase in border crossings that overwhelmed shelters, sparking concern that the US government would be unprepared for the additional surge in migration that’s expected if the policy ends.

Since March 2020, officials have relied on Title 42 to swiftly expel many migrants from the country.

Here’s a look at some of the key questions and answers about the appeals court’s ruling, Title 42’s history, what’s happening on the ground and what could happen next.

In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a public health order that officials said aimed to stop the spread of Covid-19. The order allowed authorities to swiftly expel migrants at US land borders. The policy is widely known as Title 42, for the portion of US code that allowed the CDC director to issue it.

In a ruling last month, US District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the government to end the “arbitrary and capricious” policy. He granted a request for a five-week reprieve, setting a deadline of December 21.

In an emergency motion, the governors of 19 GOP-led states had tried to stop the judge’s order from going into effect, asking a federal appeals court to step in.

But the DC Circuit US Court of Appeals on Friday denied the states’ request to intervene in the case and dismissed as moot their request to put the lower court’s ruling on hold.

The Republican-led states previously indicated that if the appeals court ruled against them, they’d seek the intervention of the Supreme Court.

The Biden administration is also appealing Sullivan’s ruling, but has said it’s continuing with its preparations to end Title 42 expulsions as ordered on December 21.

El Paso Deputy City Manager Mario D’Agostino told reporters this week that about 2,500 migrants have crossed the border there daily.

At this point there isn’t any known connection between the rise in crossings there and the looming end of Title 42.

But El Paso officials say they’re worried what they’re seeing now at the border will only intensify once the policy is lifted.

In pictures: El Paso sees surge in border crossings

D’Agostino said already what his city is seeing is different than past surges of migrants across the border

Before, D’Agostino said, increases in migrant populations crossing the border were gradual and over a series of months. This time, he said, it has been rapid and over a few days.

“Our infrastructure cannot keep up,” he said.

The border restrictions were controversial from the moment the Trump administration announced them. Immigrant rights advocates argued officials were using public health as a pretext to keep as many immigrants out of the country as possible. Public health experts also slammed the policy, saying it wasn’t justified by the circumstances.

Migrants cross the Rio Grande near El Paso, Texas, on Sunday. Officials say the city is bracing for the end of Title 42 next week.

In April, the policy became a political lightning rod and a topic of fierce debate as the Biden administration announced plans to end it. But ultimately, the policy remained in place after a federal judge in Louisiana blocked the administration’s plans to roll it back.

Debate resurged after Sullivan’s November ruling, and again several weeks later as word spread of the increasing number of migrants crossing in El Paso.

Migrants encountered under Title 42 are either expelled to their home countries or into Mexico. Under Title 42, authorities have expelled migrants at the US-Mexico border nearly 2.5 million times in less than three years, according to US Customs and Border Protection data. And the vast majority of those expulsions – more than 80% – have occurred under the Biden administration.

Those who support Title 42 point to border arrests as they argue how essential the pandemic policy has been for blocking illegal immigration. Those who oppose the policy argue official statistics about encounters at the border inflate the severity of the situation, because the data include people crossing the border multiple times. They argue Title 42 has actually caused more border crossings.

There’s no doubt Title 42 has become a policy officials frequently turn to at the border, but it’s not the only way migrants’ cases are handled. A CNN analysis of 10 months of data earlier this year found that the public health restrictions were applied in about 50% of migrant encounters at the southwest border.

Immigrants from Haiti, who crossed through a gap in the US-Mexico border barrier, wait to be processed by the U.S. Border Patrol on May 20, 2022, in Yuma, Arizona.

If Title 42 is lifted, the way migrants are processed at the border would go back to how it was before 2020. Under that system, migrants are either removed from the country, detained or released into the US while their cases make their way through immigration court.

And officials continue to predict that lifting Title 42 is likely to spur a significant increase in the number of migrants trying to cross into the US.

Last month the Department of Homeland Security was projecting between 9,000 to 14,000 migrants may attempt to cross the US southern border daily when Title 42 ends, more than double the current number of people crossing, according to a source familiar with the projections.

Earlier this year, the policy drew attention when authorities at first were using it to turn away Ukrainians at the border, then largely started granting exceptions that allowed thousands of Ukrainians seeking refuge to cross.

Advocates argued a racist double standard was at play as many migrants from Central America and Haiti continued to be turned back under the policy. Federal officials denied that accusation and said each exemption is granted on a case-by-case basis.

In August, CNN’s analysis found that migrants from outside Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador were far less likely to be subjected to Title 42.

But for some migrants, that’s starting to change. Nearly 6,000 Venezuelan migrants were expelled under Title 42 in October after the Biden administration announced a new policy toward migrants from the South American nation.

Advocates say for many of those who are expelled, the situation is dire.

Since Biden took office, Human Rights First says it’s identified more than 13,000 incidents of kidnapping, torture, rape or other violent attacks on people blocked or expelled to Mexico under Title 42.

The Biden administration has sent mixed messages on Title 42. It has criticized Title 42 and vowed to end its use at the border, but more recently came to rely on the policy.

Many advocates expected President Biden would lift the order as soon as he took office, given his campaign promises to build a more humane immigration system. Instead, his administration extended the policy more than a year into his presidency and defended it for months in court.

In April 2022, the administration announced plans to end the policy, stating that it was no longer necessary given “current public health conditions and an increased availability of tools to fight Covid-19.”

After the federal judge in Louisiana blocked that effort, the Justice Department vowed to appeal.

But in October, facing mounting political pressure over a marked increase in migrants crossing the border, the administration announced it was expanding the use of Title 42 to expel Venezuelans into Mexico.

Now once again officials say they’re preparing for the policy to end. But they’re also appealing the federal judge’s recent ruling, arguing that public health restrictions limiting migration are legal.

Whatever happens next is sure to face intense political scrutiny.

Already Sullivan’s decision and the increasing number of migrants crossing in El Paso are intensifying debate over the border once again.