What Should We Do about the Increasing Border Encounters?

There is a state of emergency at the southern border of the United States. My long-time readers know that I have written about such a problem since the Obama administration. I supported Donald Trump in his demand that a wall/fence/barrier be built along the border, and I applauded as the fence went up. Trump also put policies in place that stopped the caravans from crossing the border. The border was more secure that it had ever been. Then Joe Biden became the President, and everything changed.

Biden stopped construction on the border fence/wall on his first day in office, and he cancelled the border security policies as quickly as he could. The last – or one of the last – policies is Title 42. It was set to expire last night, but a court case took it to the Supreme Court.

In a 5-4 ruling yesterday, the Justices put a temporary block on ending Title 42. There was a bit of a surprise in the votes by the various Justices. Chief Justice John Roberts joined Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Clarence Thomas to block the termination of Title 42. Justice Neil Gorsuch joined Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson in voting to end Title 42.

Title 42 is a policy invoked by former President Donald Trump. According to Jarrett Stepman at the Daily Signal, it “is a health policy implemented by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. When implemented, it enabled “the quick deportation of illegal immigrants during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Stepman has an interesting description for Title 42. 

The administration has used Title 42 as a sort of political football. It maintains the policy when convenient, then announces it will drop it to appease open-borders activists. The law will remain on the books for the time being, but it’s clear the administration won’t employ it aggressively, nor will it take other serious steps to get illegal immigration under control.

Title 42 works well when it is used correctly, but the Biden administration has reduced its effectiveness even while keeping it on the books. For example, Stepman gave the following information that Conn Carroll of the Washington Examiner shared on Twitter.

11/20: 71,929 border encounters, 88% denied entry through Title 42.

11/21: 174,845 border encounters, 51% denied entry through Title 42.

11/22: 233,740 border encounters, 29% denied entry through Title 42.

The above numbers show that the border crisis is escalating and becoming worse as the days pass. From the looks of things, the numbers of border encounters will continue to increase until the Biden administration finally acts for the good of the nation.  Stepman continued:

There are now tens of thousands of people massed around border checkpoints. The Department of Homeland Security predicted that 12,000 to 14,000 people a day could attempt unlawful border crossings every day if Title 42 were dropped. Even half of that number would be staggering.

What’s been made clear, from the moment President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, is that this administration isn’t serious about border enforcement. On Day One, he dropped the Remain in Mexico policy that forced asylum claims.

Like Title 42, that policy remains stuck in an ongoing legal battle. The policy prevented a pileup of people coming over the border and deterred bogus asylum claims.

Republicans could do something about the border, but they seem to be of the same opinion as Biden. There were eighteen Republicans in the Senate and nine in the House who voted for the omnibus bill and bailing out sanctuary cities. Americans should be grateful for the Supreme Court ruling in favor of retaining Title 42 and the nineteen Republican states who sought to keep it in place.  With Title 42 remaining in place for a few more months, there should be a few border crossers who get deported.