CDC To Stop Using COVID as Excuse To Expel Unaccompanied Immigrant Minors

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced it is scrapping part of a pandemic-related immigration health order that required the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to expel unaccompanied migrant children. 

In 2020, President Donald Trump enacted a pandemic health order, Title 42, under which Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials must expel migrants crossing the Canadian and Mexican borders under the pretext of stopping the spread of COVID-19. Most of the expulsions happen at the southern border, with more than 400,000 Title 42 expulsions there this year compared to the northern border’s 5,421.

Title 42 goes against longstanding U.S. asylum law, which allows people to cross into the U.S. to make an asylum claim. In February 2021, the Biden administration chose to exempt unaccompanied minors from expulsion. But the state of Texas sued the administration for the exemption, and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled in favor of the state. The court determined that the Biden administration could not exempt unaccompanied minors from the expulsion orders. In response to the ruling, in order to keep from having to expel the children, the CDC decided to get rid of that portion of Title 42 altogether. 

According to CBP, from October 2021 to February 2022, up to 58,503 minors traveled alone across U.S. borders. Many of them are fleeing violence or persecution in their home countries. The organization Human Rights First reported one 17-year-old boy fled Mexico because cartel members threatened him at gunpoint. Another 17-year-old in the same report also fled to the border after similar death threats. In 2020, Human Rights First tracked 1,114 violent attacks against migrants sent back over the Mexican border under Title 42. Of the 1,114 attacks, 265 were kidnappings or attempted kidnappings agai