U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming, wants the United States to resume the southern border policies it enforced under former President Donald Trump.
With an influx of migrants expected to come across the southern border with Mexico in response to President Joe Biden lifting a COVID-19 pandemic-era restriction on immigration, Wyoming’s congressional delegation is blasting Biden’s policies.
Lummis is co-sponsoring legislation with Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn to reinstate the Migrants Protection Protocols, also known as the Remain in Mexico program, that she says was highly effective at slowing the flow of illegal immigration during the Trump administration.
“The Remain in Mexico policy worked and should be reinstated,” Lummis says in a Wednesday press release. “The crisis at our southwest border is impacting every state, including Wyoming, and will only worsen this week when Title 42 is lifted.”
That policy, Title 42, was used 2.8 million times to detain and deport people who crossed the border illegally.
Biden is using his presidential authority to end Title 42 on Thursday, a health law introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic to control immigration at the borders with Mexico and Canada.
With the removal of the order, the immediate expulsion of undocumented migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border will halt.
Starting Friday, migrants seeking asylum will be interviewed by immigration officers. Those found to have a “credible fear” of being persecuted in their home countries can stay in the U.S. until a final determination is made, a process that can take years, but usually results in asylum not being granted.
What Title 42 Did
Title 42 was implemented during the Trump administration to suspend immigration law allowing people to ask for asylum after entering illegally.
The temporary mandate allowed the U.S. government to send migrants back over the Mexico border once they entered America. The Biden administration has continued Title 42, but ended the Trump-era practice of expelling children who arrived at the border unaccompanied.
Under Biden, there have been 5.7 million encounters at the border, the House Committee on Homeland Security reports.
In place of Title 42, the Biden administration is rolling out a plan that encourages migrants to use legal pathways to gain entry into the U.S. and citizenship.
The administration also has said its plan is to use deterrence and diplomacy to discourage people from trying to enter the country illegally and will set up centers in foreign countries where migrants can apply to emigrate to the U.S.
The Associated Press reports the Biden administration also is proposing a rule that would generally deny asylum to migrants who first travel through another country. It also wants to quickly screen migrants seeking asylum at the border, deport those deemed not qualified and deny reentry for five years those who are deported.
Lummis’ Legislation
In early 2019, the Department of Homeland Security instituted the MPP, which ended the previous policy of catch and release and restored full processing of illegal immigrants.
“Catch and release” refers to a practice of releasing a migrant while he or she awaits hearings in immigration court as an alternative to holding them in immigration detention.
Under MPP, migrants arriving at the border were issued notices to appear for an immigration court hearing at a later date and were returned to Mexico. In many cases, they would have to wait many months for a hearing, but while they waited, Mexico provided humanitarian aid.
Biden suspended the MPP program on his second day in office.
“The crisis at our southwest border is impacting every state, including Wyoming, and will only worsen this week when Title 42 is lifted,” Lummis said. “With illegal border crossings reaching record highs, we need solutions to stop the flow of illegal immigration at the border.”.
Did Title 42 Work?
Although Title 42 has been touted by some as a deterrent to illegal border crossings, there also is data that indicates otherwise.
The number of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border has reached record levels over the past three years. In 2022, U.S. Border Patrol encountered 1.4 million migrants on 2.2 million occasions, an all-time record.
In November, a federal judge struck down Title 42, finding it “arbitrary and capricious,” but the U.S. Supreme Court decided shortly after to keep it in place.
A wave of migrants is almost universally expected at the border in the wake of Title 42’s lifting.
Hageman’s Thoughts
U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyoming, recently visited the border in Yuma, Arizona, and tweeted Wednesday that, “Biden has created this crisis and created the largest human and drug trafficking operation in U.S. history.”
“It’s time to finish the wall, end ‘catch and release,’ protect women and children from human traffickers, stop the illegal drugs flowing into our country, fix our broken asylum system and force this administration to finally address this disaster they have created,” Hageman said on the House floor Thursday morning.
Hageman has issued support for a bill proposed in the House that would force the Biden administration to restart construction of the border wall, increase the number of U.S. Border Patrol agents and provide bonus pay, require transparency regarding illegal crossings from the Department of Homeland Security, strengthen current law to protect unaccompanied children from human trafficking, and end catch and release.
The 2023 budget package Biden signed into law already gives the Border Patrol a 17% increase over the year before, The Hill reports, which includes $65 million for 300 new agents, $60 million for 125 new personnel at points of entry, and $230 million for technology like autonomous surveillance towers.
House Republicans voted against this spending package.
This winter, the Wyoming Legislature considered legislation that would have sent $5 million to Texas, Arizona and Florida to help their efforts in building a border wall and transporting migrants to other places. The bill died in the Senate on an 18-12 vote.
Wave Of Fentanyl
During a Committee on Foreign Relations meeting in March, U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, pressed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the illegal transport of the highly potent opioid fentanyl across the Mexico border and into America’s communities.
“I’m from Wyoming. You would think how much fentanyl could be going there, it’s not close to the border. But every state is a border state,” Barrasso said. “Wyoming is seeing an astronomical increase in the amount of deaths related to fentanyl. At the same time, the amount of fentanyl in Wyoming is at an all-time high.”
In 2020, the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation seized about 1,600 doses of fentanyl. Last year, that number multiplied to 13,000 units.
“What can we be doing more to work with the government of Mexico to stop the importation of fentanyl precursors from China?” Barrasso questioned Blinkin.
But the Cato Institute found in 2022 that more than 90% of fentanyl, and more than 80% of total illegal narcotics, arrive at legal points of entry, and are smuggled in largely by legal Americans.
