The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (C.D.C) announced that it will lift the public health emergency order, known as Title 42, that has restricted immigration at the U.S. borders since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The decision was made based on current health conditions and the increased availability of tools against COVID-19.
The policy change will go into effect on May 23rd, 2022, and immigration officials expect a large surge of migrants in addition to the already thousands of migrants who reach the U.S. border every day. The order has been used to expel migrants about 1.7 million times over the past two years.
President Biden condemned the C.D.C.’s decision, however, the Biden administration began offering vaccinations to undocumented migrants at the border this week, vaccinating about 2,000 migrants per day.
“These measures, along with the current public health landscape where 97.1 percent of the U.S. population lives in a county identified as having ‘low’ COVID-19 community level, will sufficiently mitigate the COVID-19 risk for U.S. communities,” the C.D.C stated.
Contrary to other public health measures put in place during the pandemic, the C.D.C never disclosed scientific data to show that migrants at the border cause a significant spread of COVID-19.
According to advocates from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the order has put expelled migrants in danger because of the instability they face in their home countries. The ACLU advocates said that waiting until late May to lift the order would put even more migrants in danger.
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, has also explained that migrants are not a cause of increasing COVID-19 cases in the U.S.
“Focusing on immigrants, expelling them or what have you, is not the solution to an outbreak,” he said.
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