With just over a month until the Biden administration plans to repeal Title 42, a bipartisan group of the House and Senate has approved legislation to keep Title 42 in effect until the Biden administration completes its declaration of a public health emergency due to the Covid-19 pandemic and develops plan a plan to deal with the massive influx of illegal immigrants that would trigger the dissolution of Title 42.
The legislation approved by the Solvers Caucus – a group of 58 lawmakers from the Republican and Democratic parties – which has a companion bill with bipartisan support in the Senate, seeks to establish congressional oversight of “ending pandemic suspensions of entry into and imports from designated places.” Covid-19.” In particular, ending Title 42 and its authority to return some illegal immigrants back across the U.S.-Mexico border rather than admit them to U.S. immigration facilities.
The bill establishes congressional oversight by prohibiting the administration from lifting the title 42 to 60 days after the formal end of the declaration of a public health emergency related to Covid-19.
— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) April 22, 2022
The bill would prohibit title from expiring 42 to 60 days after the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) provides Congress with written notice of the expiration of a public health emergency declaration related to Covid-19.
Within 30 days of this notice, the Secretary of HHS, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the heads of “each federal, state, local agency, or tribal government, and nongovernmental organization that plays a role in managing suspension-related outcomes.”
The bill clarifies that other groups involved in managing the results of the termination of Title 42 “as determined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, shall develop and submit to the appropriate congressional committees authorizing and appropriating the resolution plan any possible influx of entries or imports associated with the termination of such order.” “
In the event that a Title 42 termination plan is not submitted to Congress “within the prescribed 30-day period,” then the HHS Secretary must “delay the expiration of the suspension order… until a date that is 30 days after the date of submission of such plan” to Congress.
The (*42*) Solvers Caucus, which endorsed this legislation, includes Republicans as well as Democrats in the House of Representatives, including Abigail Spanberger (VA), Debbie Dingell (MI), Conor Lamb (PA), Elissa Slotkin (MI), and Josh Gottheimer (NJ) .
Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio is among those leading the charge to pass the measure through the Senate — including Texas Sen. John Cornyn and West Virginia Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R) and Joe Manchin (R) — in an attempt to force the Biden administration to end other COVID-related emergency declarations prior to the end of Title 42.
This week, my colleagues and I introduced the Public Health and Border Security Act, requiring the lifting of all national emergencies related to Covid-19 before Title 42 officially expires.
— Rob Portman (@senrobportman) April 10, 2022
As Julio reported earlier on Friday, even Biden’s DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has privately shared his concerns about the additional influx of immigrants that will come after Title 42 expires — similar to his only private admission that the U.S.-Mexico border is in crisis.
