There has been a lot of talk about Title 42—a public health measure introduced during the pandemic to staunch the flow of refugees across the nation’s southern border and maintained (with shaky justification) since then. Title 42: resurrected or Undead? – Produce Blue Book
So, what has Title 42 accomplished?
Philip Martin, the University of California-Davis professor who is probably the nation’s leading authority on farm labor, sent me some figures.
“Under Title 42, some 2.4 million foreigners who were encountered just inside the U.S. border with Mexico have been expelled, over a million a year,” Martin writes.
“A record 2.2 million unauthorized foreigners were encountered by Border Patrol agents just inside the U.S. border with Mexico in FY22, and another 172,500 were detected at ports of entry, bringing total encounters to 2.4 million, up 37 percent from 1.7 million encounters in FY21. Mexicans and Central Americans were 57 percent of those encountered, and the number of Venezuelans, Cubans, and Nicaraguans, over 571,000, exceeded the number from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
“Some 2.5 million foreigners encountered since March 2020 were returned to Mexico under Title 42,” Martin continues. “Many of the other foreigners encountered, over 15,000 a month, were allowed into the U.S. to pursue asylum claims that can last several years because of the backlog of 750,000 asylum cases in immigration courts. Asylum seekers can work after 150 days in the U.S. and their children can attend K-12 schools.”
These figures do not reflect the actual number of illegal entrants. They are merely a total of “border incidents.” Because there is no penalty for attempted reentry, entrants are free to try again, leading to recidivism.
Under Title 42, the recidivism rate rose from 14 percent to 19 percent—meaning that about one in five apprehended illegals had tried at least once before.
The Biden administration considers Title 42, introduced by the previous administration, “arbitrary and capricious” and sought to end it on December 31. But the Supreme Court overruled it and allowed the measure to stand until the court can hear an immigration suit brought by 19 states in February 2023.
Without Title 42, the Department of Homeland Security estimates that encounters with foreigners could rise from 8,000 a day to 12,000 a day, according to Martin.
