Washington
UJ
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The Trump administration is anticipated to announce a health order this week categorizing migrants at the US southern border as potential disease spreaders. This represents an intensification of the president’s initiatives to limit immigration significantly, according to multiple sources familiar with the talks.
The forthcoming public health order, which remains in the drafting stage, recalls a similar measure from 2020 during Donald Trump’s initial term, enacted due to the coronavirus outbreak. This earlier order effectively barred asylum seekers from entering, drawing sharp rebukes from advocates for immigrants and leading to repeated crossings that elicited concerns from certain Homeland Security officials.
According to several sources, the discussions regarding the new order have included references to diseases such as measles and tuberculosis. This would be the latest action in the administration’s efforts to harden its stance on the US-Mexico border despite a noticeable decline in crossings.
UJ reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comments, which referred the inquiry to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and a key architect of the president’s strict immigration policies, has consistently pushed for the application of Title 42 — the emergency health authority — to further restrict immigration to the United States.
In a 2023 interview with the New York Times, Miller asserted that Trump would likely reinstate the authority, citing “significant strains of flu, tuberculosis, scabies, and various other communicable diseases” as justifications for viewing mass migration as a public health threat.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is tasked with assessing whether a communicable disease from a foreign nation poses a risk to the United States and determining if a public health order is warranted to mitigate that risk, with implementation handled by the Department of Homeland Security.
During the coronavirus pandemic, CDC officials expressed concerns about potential pressure from the White House to make such determinations. While the coronavirus was classified as a public health emergency at that time, a senior official from Health and Human Services indicated that the Title 42 authority isn’t dependent on that classification.
Former CDC officials also contend that there’s no need for a new order, framing it as a strategy to impose immigration policy under the guise of health concerns.
The United States is currently facing a measles outbreak in West Texas; as of Tuesday afternoon, the number of cases associated with the outbreak had reached 58, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. However, it is unclear whether this outbreak is linked to the US-Mexico border, where migrant crossings have significantly decreased in recent months.
Addressing the potential invocation of Title 42 due to measles, Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, remarked to UJ: “Given what’s transpired in Texas, I hope we safeguard the Mexicans from ourselves.”
The US-Mexico border has already been effectively sealed off for asylum seekers through various measures, including the application of Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which grants the president broad powers to restrict border crossings, alongside the reinstatement of the so-called “remain in Mexico” policy that mandates migrants stay in Mexico while their US immigration court cases are processed.
“Border arrests have declined because we have secured the border,” Homan stated on Fox News Monday. “229 encounters within a 24-hour window is a record.”
If Title 42 is applied, it would impose another obstacle for migrants seeking asylum at the southern border of the US.
Introduced at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, Title 42 permitted authorities to quickly expel migrants at US borders, ostensibly to mitigate the spread of the virus. This order, grounded in an age-old public health statute, was implemented while the United States was already dealing with Covid-19’s spread and prompted backlash from both immigration advocates and health experts.
At that time, health professionals nationwide argued in a correspondence to the Department of Health and Human Services that “there’s no public health justification for denying entry to individuals based on legal status.”
The resurgence of Title 42 could likely trigger legal disputes. The American Civil Liberties Union was among those who contested the earlier applications of this authority. Nevertheless, Title 42 remained active throughout former President Joe Biden’s administration and only expired in May 2023, with border authorities expelling migrants nearly 3 million times under its provisions.
One of the critiques regarding the application of Title 42, raised by Homeland Security officials, is that this public health authority didn’t impose significant legal consequences for migrants who crossed illegally, meaning that if they were sent back, they could attempt to cross again multiple times. In contrast, individuals crossing the border unlawfully face stricter repercussions under immigration law.
UJ’s Meg Tirrell, Carma Hassan, Brenda Goodman, and Angelica Franganillo Diaz contributed to this report.
