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Biden Is Still Turning Away Migrants at the Border
Trump-era Covid-19 border policies are being carried over to the new administration
For weeks, pundits, conservative politicians, and anonymous Border Patrol sources have been warning of a crisis brewing at the U.S.-Mexico border. They claim there’s a “surge” in migrant families and unaccompanied children arriving at the border each day and that the Biden administration — which promised to take a softer stance on immigration than its predecessor — is being overwhelmed by record numbers of unauthorized migrants.
But the real crisis at the border is that most people still aren’t being let in. Almost a year ago, the U.S. abandoned its legal responsibility to asylum-seekers using a little-known health statute called Title 42 to turn them away. And President Joe Biden has not reversed Donald Trump’s move, even as he has undone other policies implemented under the Trump administration. Biden has touted his commitment to reform the U.S. immigration system, but his reluctance to lift Title 42 points to a central contradiction underpinning his entire philosophy on immigration: justice for immigrants who are already here but not necessarily for those who want or need to come in the future.
