Title 42 To End This Week. Nightmare At The Border?

FORECASTS & TRENDS E-LETTER
by Gary D. Halbert
December 20, 2022

IN THIS ISSUE:

1. Title 42 To End This Week – What Happens Next?

2. What Americans Need To Know About Title 42

3. Will Border Be Less Secure If Title 42 Goes Away?

4. Bottom Line: Illegal Immigration Set To Soar

5 . We Should Welcome, Not Fear, Population Growth

Overview – Title 42 Ends This Week – What Happens Next?

You’ve probably heard a lot of talk about “Title 42” recently, so I thought we would talk about it today. Title 42 allows border agents to ship illegal migrants out of the country without due process. There is a lot of controversy surrounding Title 42, and a federal court recently ruled the Biden administration must stop it. It was scheduled to end tomorrow, December 21.

However, the Supreme Court ruled late on Monday to delay the halt of Title 42. It is not clear how long the High Court will delay the end of Title 42, but it is not expected to be delayed for more than a few days. So, I think it is still important for us to talk about it despite yesterday’s Supreme Court extension of its end.

For nearly three years, the federal government has turned away over two million migrants at the US-Mexico border, including those who are seeking asylum, using Title 42. It was implemented by the Trump administration at the start of the COVID pandemic and continued under the Biden administration.

When the end of Title 42 comes up, it brings images of large crowds of people crossing the Rio Grande River which divides the United States and Mexico. Texas Governor Greg Abbott warns that our border with Mexico will be overrun with illegal migrants if Title 42 is halted, and border states are already struggling to handle the large increase in migrants since President Biden took office.

With Title 42 ending this week, unless a court moves to extend it, now might be a good time to understand what it's all about.

What Americans Need To Know About Title 42

Title 42 and previous laws similar to it have a long history in the United States. Congress approved a similar law in 1893 during a cholera epidemic which gave the president authority to exclude people from certain countries during a public health emergency. It was used again in 1929 to bar people coming from China and the Philippines during a meningitis outbreak.

Title 42 is part of the Public Health Service Act of 1944 aimed at preventing the spread of communicable diseases in the country. According to the law, whenever the US Surgeon General determines there is a communicable disease in another country, health officials have the authority, with the approval of the president, to prohibit “the introduction of persons and property from such countries or places” for as long as health officials determine the action is necessary. This authority was transferred from the US Surgeon General to the director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in 1966.

The Trump administration invoked Title 42 on March 20, 2020 as a way to help stop the spread of COVID-19 in immigrant detention centers, where many migrants are placed after they arrive at the US-Mexico border. As COVID-19 cases rose in the US, then-CDC Director Robert Redfield enacted Title 42 to seal the land borders with Canada and Mexico for migrants seeking asylum.

Since March 2020, immigration officials have used the health order more than 2.4 million times to expel migrants, many of whom have been removed multiple times after making repeated attempts to enter the US at the southern border. You can see below how border crossings have skyrocketed under the Biden administration.

Chart showing border crossings

Under Title 42, the recidivism rate – the percentage of people apprehended more than once by the Border Patrol – increased from only 7% in 2019 to as much as 27%. A Texas Tribune analysis of fiscal year 2022 data shows the current rate is 25%.

During the Trump administration, immigration agents expelled all types of migrants, but the Biden administration has instructed agents to exempt unaccompanied children from Title 42. When agents apprehend unaccompanied children, they are placed in a federal shelter or a state-run facility until they are reunited with a family member in the US or until they find a sponsor.

Will The Border Be Less Secure If Title 42 Goes Away?

As you’ve probably heard, there is a rousing debate on whether or not to end Title 42. Those wanting Title 42 continued argue that the border will be overrun with illegal migrants if the law is ended. As you can see in the chart above, illegal border crossings have already exploded since President Biden took office, and Texas border cities and towns are in crisis mode.

We’re told that larger than normal groups of migrants are already making their way through Mexico to get into Texas when Title 42 goes away. Texas Governor Greg Abbott says the Border Patrol here has warned him we will see a spike of at least 18,000 more illegal migrants per day in the weeks ahead. Texas and other border states are in no position to handle an increase of that magnitude!

If Title 42 ends, the government reverts to previous immigration law, which falls under Title 8 of the U.S. Code of Federal Statutes. Under Title 8, migrants are allowed to apply for asylum and are granted due process, even though they are here illegally. It is widely reported that many of these people never appear for their court hearings and simply disappear into the population. This is not good for America!

Another challenge the US is facing is that it's increasingly seeing people from countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and others arriving at the border. The US has frosty to no diplomatic relations with most of these countries, and several have refused to take their people back. With Title 42 in place, the US government is not required to send illegal migrants back to their home countries.

Under Title 42, many of these illegals are being sent to Mexico which has been willing to accept them. The US is in negotiations with Mexico to accept even more, and Cuba recently agreed to accept some of these illegal migrants.

In the past year, Haiti, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia, Peru and Brazil have agreed to accept their citizens who are sent back. Hopefully, more countries will follow.

Congress has been working on legislation to address immigration and border security, but time has run out for passage of a sweeping deal this year – and it remains to be seen if the end product, if there is one, will have any effect on the flows of migrants into this country.

Bottom Line: Illegal Immigration Is Set To Soar

With Title 42 ending soon, the US Border Patrol will be seriously restricted on how they can remove illegal migrants from the US. A federal court has ruled that Title 42 is unconstitutional. It will end this week unless some other court overrules it, which is not considered likely.

A surge of illegal migrants in the weeks and months ahead is all but certain. What is uncertain is how the US will react. Liberals will welcome this development; conservatives will not.

The question is, how do we accommodate a large increase in the number of people who want to come to this country. I don’t know the answer, but we’re about to find out.

Why We Should Welcome, Not Fear, Population Growth

Around the middle of November, the world population reached eight billion people. To some observers, who worry about the potential scarcity of the earth’s resources, this milestone portends almost certain calamity.

According to the Global Footprint Network, an international consultancy on the use of world resources, “humans use as much ecological resources as if we lived on 1.75 Earths.” Let that one sink in. For over a hundred years, researchers have warned that our growing world population would lead to mass starvation.

Of course, that never happened. In fact, the opposite turned out to be true – in reality, the rising global population and human freedom have unlocked an era of prosperity and abundance unmatched in human history.

As I have written recently, looking as far back as 1850, researchers have analyzed prices of hundreds of food items, metals, minerals and fuels and found that over time, population growth has fueled human innovation, which in turn, has provided what some have called a “superabundance” of resources which makes our lives better.

Rather than looking at just prices, we need to look at how long we must work to be able to afford things. So long as your nominal hourly income increases at a faster pace than nominal prices do, goods and services get more abundant.

And across the board, commodities have been growing dramatically cheaper for consumers over the years. Between 1900 and 2018, the length of time a blue-collar American worker had to work to earn enough money to buy rice, the time dropped by 97.6%; the drop in wheat and corn was 96.7% and 96.1%.

This despite the fact that the population of the United States grew from 76 million people to 328 million over the same period, with similar growth in many other countries.

This does not mean we don’t have to be good stewards of our planet and its resources. We absolutely do! But we also must strive to make sure more people are free to think, speak, associate, invest and profit from their ideas and inventions.

Put differently, freedom is the key to the success of humankind and the planet!

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Best holiday regards,

Gary D. Halbert

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