On Tuesday, the Biden White House issued a statement attempting to blame the ongoing crisis at the southern border on congressional Republicans.
According to the Washington Examiner, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that the administration will “manage the border in a secure, orderly, and humane way” in the event that the Trump-era policy of Title 42 is ultimately ended. The administration, Jean-Pierre said, will look at ways of “expanding legal pathways for immigration.”
“Title 42 is a public health measure, not an immigration enforcement measure, and it should not be extended indefinitely,” said Jean-Pierre in a written statement. “To truly fix our broken immigration system, we need Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform measures like the ones President Biden proposed on his first day in office.”
“Today’s order gives Republicans in Congress plenty of time to move past political finger-pointing,” Jean-Pierre added, “and join their Democratic colleagues in solving the challenge at our border by passing the comprehensive reform measures and delivering the additional funds for border security that President Biden has requested.”
The statement comes as the nation awaits the fate of Title 42, a public health policy that cited the Chinese coronavirus pandemic as a reason to significantly reduce both legal and illegal immigration in order to prevent the spread of the disease. First implemented by President Donald Trump in early 2020, the policy was an overwhelming success, reducing immigration levels to near zero. But upon taking power, Joe Biden vowed to reverse Title 42, alongside many other Trump-era immigration policies, in order to maintain his open-borders approach.
Just as Title 42 was set to reach its expiration date, the Supreme Court decided in a 5-4 ruling to halt the end of Title 42, allowing the policy to temporarily remain in place while a coalition of 19 Republican-led states make their case for the policy’s preservation. Meanwhile, thousands of illegal aliens have gathered at the southern border in anticipation of Title 42 coming to an end, setting up yet another massive surge across the border that will worsen an already disastrous immigration crisis.