Tennessee U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) recently joined ten Republican U.S. Senator colleagues in sending a letter to President Joe Biden urging his administration to extend Title 42.
Title 42, a pandemic-related immigration policy, is slated to expire next week on Thursday.
In their letter to Biden, the senators argue that Title 42 has been used 2.7 million times, including 1.5 million times in just the past 18 months, since its initial order was issued in March 2020. In addition, of the 2.3 million encounters in the fiscal year 2022, 1 million were processed under Title 42, the senators added.
“We shudder to think about how much worse the situation at the border would have been over the past three years had it not been for the deterrent effect of Title 42,” the group of senators wrote. “Over the past three years, the Title 42 order has been a lifeline to the men and women of Border Patrol, who have been working heroically 24 hours a day to secure our southern border amid the worst border crisis in our lifetimes. Even with Title 42 in place, illegal crossings at the border have been at all-time highs.”
The senators also criticized the Biden administration’s proposed rule, “The Circumvention of Lawful Pathways,” to address the uptick in migration expected once Title 42 is lifted.
“Nothing in this [Biden] rule prevents aliens from making frivolous asylum claims,” the senators continued. “Instead, under the terms of the rule, aliens are encouraged to schedule a time to present at a port of entry through the CBP One mobile application, after which time many, if not most, will subsequently claim asylum. …Whether done through the CBP One mobile app or not, this gaming of our asylum system is a major pull factor that is causing the border crisis in the first place, and until your administration has a serious plan to address that, the authority Title 42 gives will still be necessary.”
Blackburn was joined by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans Chuck Grassley (R-IA), John Cornyn (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Tom Cotton (R-AR), John Kennedy (R-LA), and Thom Tillis (R-NC) in sending the letter.
Title 42 is coming to an end because Biden doesn’t think we need it.
We need to keep Title 42 and make certain that we build the wall. pic.twitter.com/7K8LXqqaJO
— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) April 28, 2023
On Twitter, Blackburn added, “What we need to do is to keep Title 42, we need to keep this country safe, and we need to make certain that we build the wall.”
The Biden administration has also approved an increase of 1,500 military personnel to “supplement U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) efforts” on the U.S.-Mexico border ahead of Title 42’s expiring.
The additional 1,500 troops, according to the U.S. Department of Defense, will join the existing 2,500 military personnel currently providing support at the southwest border on a 90-day deployment, as previously reported by The Tennessee Star.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.
Photo “Marsha Blackburn” by Sen. Marsha Blackburn. Photo “Joe Biden” by The White House. Background Photo “Border Wall” by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
