STAKES ARE SKY-HIGH AFTER END OF TITLE 42

The U.S. government’s decision to — finally — stop using the Title 42 provision of an obscure 1944 law as a blunt tool to control immigration late Thursday night did not trigger the border chaos on Friday that some people expected as tens of thousands of migrants gathered to try to enter the U.S. along its 1,951-mile southern border. But it certainly created confusion, and it clearly marked the end of one era and the beginning of another in U.S. immigration policy. Are President Joe Biden and his administration up to the immense challenge this poses at a time of unprecedented global migration? The stakes could hardly be higher, given that Donald Trump could ride anger over immigration policy back to the White House in next year’s election.

The U.S. government began using Title 42 to justify the immediate rejection of migrants seeking entrance at the U.S.-Mexico border in March 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has since expelled more than 2.6 million people without considering them for asylum, according to U.S. government data. Candidate Biden had promised a more compassionate set of immigration policies than Trump, and his decision to keep using a public health tool to control immigration angered many. Now he insists his new approach will provide fairer treatment of those who hope to come here. Instead of being turned away en masse, migrants seeking asylum can be kept out of the nation, detained or released on U.S. soil as their cases go through immigration court. The Department of Homeland Security plans to set up additional migrant-processing centers at the border. But Biden’s plan also has teeth: A new regulation would generally ban migrants from seeking asylum if they cross the U.S.Mexico border or travel through other countries on their way to the border without authorization.

In a Wednesday interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board, Alan Bersin — the border czar and commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection under President Barack Obama — said Biden’s plans build off an appreciation that the world has changed. Those seeking to enter the U.S. without going through standard immigration procedures were once primarily from Mexico. Now, people come to the U.S. from all over the globe. In fact, the United Nations estimates more than 280 million migrants are no longer in their country of birth, which makes controlling immigration into the U.S. a global task far beyond its borders. This is why CBP has 23 attachés from Thailand to Turkey to Kenya around the world and why the U.S. has funded border patrols in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and other nations.

But even if Biden’s immigration approach makes sense in the abstract, recent days and his 26 months in office provide little reassurance it will translate into policy success. On Wednesday, there were 26,354 people in CBP custody, with five holding facilities already full far beyond safe capacity. On Thursday, a federal judge blocked Biden’s plan to blithely drop off thousands of new migrants who couldn’t be housed at U.S. facilities. And on Friday, the U.S. announced a 17-year-old boy had died at a migrant detention facility in Florida. Meanwhile, Mexico is temporarily closing half of its 66 migrant detention centers in the wake of a horrific fire at one that killed 40 migrants. On top of this, the U.S. government touts a mobile phone app that lets asylum seekers schedule appointments, which is shamefully unreliable. As Bersin noted, before Title 42 was rolled back, massive new resources should have been dedicated to a broken asylum system with 2 million-plus unresolved cases, efforts should have been undertaken to disrupt smuggling networks and more should have been done to accommodate a surge of migrants at holding facilities.

While the value of immigrants in powering the economy and diversifying America is plain, Congress has been a bad partner on immigration issues — even when under Democratic control. And the pro-immigration wing of the Republican Party — which included three former presidents — is shrinking, replaced by demagogues who use migrants as political props. But this must not stop responsible leaders from pushing for a nation with border security and an appreciation for immigrants.

For all his flaws, Biden is infinitely more of such a leader than Trump. Remember, Trump has already said what his border policy could include if he gets the job back: Vladimir Putin-style unilateral U.S. military attacks on drug cartels in Mexico, a nation that as of March was the largest U.S. trade partner — far outpacing Japan and Germany combined, per the Census Bureau. If Biden has little room for a mass influx of migrants, he has less room for error.