5/11: The End of Title 42

Mark Krikorian; Todd Bensman

By Mark Krikorian and Todd Bensman on May 11, 2023

Listen to "5/11: The End of Title 42" on Spreaker.

Summary

Title 42, the public-health rule that allows the Border Patrol to expel border-jumpers without a hearing, ends tonight at 11:59pm. It remains unclear how the Biden administration plans to enforce the border, which is already being flooded by migrants who are crossing by the thousands.

Todd Bensman, the Center for Immigration Studies’ Senior National Security Fellow, joins this episode of Parsing Immigration Policy from Matamoros, Mexico, located right across the U.S.-Mexico border from Brownsville, Texas. Bensman has interviewed migrants who have made their way to Matamoros from all over the world with plans to illegally cross into the U.S. Large encampments have formed in Matamoros, filled with migrants who are hoping to be able to enter the U.S. once Title 42 ends. As Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the Center and host of the podcast, puts it, these migrants are essentially “waiting for the first sign of weakness from this administration.”

Bensman explains that the infrastructure in place at our southern border to process migrants is already overwhelmed, and detention facilities at the border are already at 150 percent capacity. If the situation gets any worse, border officials won’t be able to hold them until their court date, and will begin using what the Biden administration calls “safe street releases”.

If you’d like to follow Bensman’s recent reporting from the border, check out all of his videos here.