Immigration | Trump in search of a health threat

Tuberculosis and respiratory diseases: the president-elect is already seeking to justify his migration policy, according to the New York Times

President-elect Donald Trump will likely justify his plan to close the border with Mexico by citing a public health emergency caused by immigrants bringing diseases into the United States.

All he has to do now is find one.

The last time Mr. Trump invoked public health restrictions, known as “Title 42,” was early in the pandemic in 2020, when the coronavirus was wreaking havoc around the world. As he prepares to return to office, Mr. Trump has no health disaster to highlight.

Yet his advisers have spent the past few months trying to find the right illness to build their case, according to four people familiar with the discussions. They considered tuberculosis and other respiratory illnesses as options and asked their Border Patrol allies for examples of illnesses detected in migrants.

They also considered trying to rationalize Title 42 by arguing that migrants at the border come from different countries and may carry unknown diseases — a claim that echoes a racist notion with a long history in the United States. and that minorities transmit infections. Mr. Trump’s team did not respond to a request for comment.

The plan to invoke border restrictions on the basis of sporadic cases of illness or even a vague fear of illness – rather than on the basis of a major epidemic or pandemic – would constitute a radical use of the measure. public health in the context of a crackdown on immigration.

Even as the coronavirus was spreading, using the health authority to turn back migrants drew scrutiny from courts and public health officials.

But Mr. Trump’s immigration advisers, led by Stephen Miller, his nominee for deputy chief of staff, believe they are entering a political environment that will welcome stronger border enforcement. , particularly after some Democrats endorsed the use of restrictions such as Title 42, according to people familiar with the planning.

President Joe Biden used it to turn away thousands of migrants before ultimately deciding to lift it, well after his public health advisers said the restrictions were no longer helpful in stopping the spread of disease.

A long-term quest

Title 42, part of the Civil Service Act of 1944, authorizes health authorities to prohibit entry into the United States when it is necessary to avert “grave danger” related to the presence of a communicable disease in foreign countries.

Mr. Miller has long viewed Title 42 as a critical tool in achieving his goal of closing the border to immigration. For years, he struggled to find enough examples of illness among migrants to justify recourse to the law.

Even before the coronavirus spread, Mr. Miller had his aides monitor U.S. communities that hosted migrants for illnesses. In 2019, he took advantage of a mumps outbreak in immigration detention centers to push for using the public health law to close the border. In most cases, cabinet secretaries and lawyers dissuaded him, until the outbreak of the coronavirus.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), not the White House, is responsible for evaluating whether the public health rule is necessary at the border. And even as the pandemic spread across the United States, CDC officials opposed the Trump White House’s position that turning back migrants was an effective way to prevent the spread diseases.

Martin Cetron, director of the agency’s Global Migration and Quarantine Division, told a House committee that the implementation of border restrictions “came from outside the subject matter experts at the CDC » and that it had been “entrusted” to them by the White House.

The border closed from January 20?

When Mr. Biden took office, he initially maintained the public health rule at the border, even when CDC officials told his top aides there was no clear public health reason to keep the border closed to asylum seekers.

Both the Biden and Trump administrations have argued that the rule is necessary to prevent the spread of disease in border detention centers. But Mr. Biden’s top aides in the White House privately feared that lifting the rule would lead to an increase in migration flows.

Mr. Trump’s attempt to discourage immigration on the basis of public health, even without a clear illness to justify its use, is just one expected part of a series of executive actions that his team is considering. planning to crack down on immigration on his first day in office.

Mr. Trump’s advisers also discussed the possibility of declaring a national emergency to free up Defense Department funds and send military personnel, aircraft and other resources to the border. They also want to revive a policy that required migrants to wait in Mexico, rather than the United States, until their immigration court date, although it would require Mexico to agree to such a agreement.

Mr. Trump’s immigration advisers were briefed on these border restrictions – as well as the use of restrictions in a health emergency – during a recent meeting with Homeland Security officials as part of of the transition between administrations, according to a person familiar with the matter. On Wednesday evening, after a meeting with Senate Republicans, Mr. Trump declared that he would close the border on his first day in office.

Some immigration experts have questioned the effectiveness of the public health rule in reducing the number of border crossings.

Between the time Title 42 was enacted in 2020 and when it was lifted in 2023, border officials expelled people more than 2.5 million times. Biden administration officials have publicly claimed that the use of Title 42 at the southern border has led to an increase in the number of migrants attempting to cross the border multiple times, a practice known as recidivism.

Blas Nuñez-Neto, a White House official, said that, in this way, Title 42 “may have” actually led to an increase in border crossings that the administration has struggled to manage.

The current situation at the border is particularly calm, especially when compared to the figures recorded a year ago. According to a senior U.S. Customs and Border Protection official, border agents made more than 47,000 arrests in December, a significant drop from the previous year, when nearly 250,000 arrests had been made.

Mr. Biden’s officials implemented a measure barring asylum to people who crossed the southern border starting last summer. This measure can only be lifted if the number of crossings falls to a certain threshold for several weeks, which has not yet been the case.

This article was published in the New York Times.

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