Mayorkas: Knew Title 42 Transition Would Be ‘Difficult’

The Biden administration is seeing “precisely the challenge that we expected” at the U.S. border in the hours after the Title 42 pandemic border rule was lifted, Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Friday.

“We knew this was going to be a difficult transition when Title 42, the public health authority that stemmed from the COVID-19 pandemic, when it ended,” Mayorkas told ABC News’ “Good Morning America.” “It ended at 11:59 P.M. last night, and now we are using our immigration authorities, our traditional immigration authorities that deliver tougher consequences for people who cross the border illegally.”

The Trump administration used Title 42 during the pandemic to stem illegal immigration. The U.S. code, enacted in 1944, is designed to prevent the entry of foreign nationals with communicable diseases into the country. 

ABC show co-anchor George Stephanopoulos pressed Mayorkas on Friday on whether the number of migrants at the border with limited food and water could have been avoided. Mayorkas insisted it was “something we’re ready for.”

Mayorkas also warned immigrants against trying to enter the U.S. illegally after Title 42 ended and against trying to enlist the use of smugglers to sneak into the country. 

“We cannot control the movement of people before they reach our border,” Mayorkas said. “Our responsibility attaches once they are in our custody.”

He added that the administration will “continue to communicate to migrants that this is not the way to seek relief in the United States.”

“It’s extraordinarily dangerous,” Mayorkas said. “They are in the hands of ruthless smugglers. We have built lawful, safe, and orderly pathways for them to come to the United States. They are going to meet tough consequences if they arrive at our border irregularly.”

Mayorkas on Friday criticized Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for sending buses of migrants to other places in the U.S. 

“It is a very sad and tragic day when a government official uses human beings as pawns to score political points,” Mayorkas said. 

He also called a late-night ruling by a federal judge in Florida, who directed the U.S. Border Patrol not to release migrants without formal notices to appear in immigration court, as “harmful.” 

The Border Patrol had been allowing some immigrants to be released into the country without giving them a formal notice to appear, saying that doing so could take time and add to overcrowding in its holding facilities, reported The New York Times.

“The practice of releasing individuals when our Border Patrol facilities, when our stations are overcrowded, is something that each administration has done from administration to administration,” Mayorkas said. “This is a harmful ruling and the Department of Justice is considering our options.”

Meanwhile, when asked if the situation at the border will get worse before it gets better, Mayorkas noted that his department has “said all along that this period of transition from using a public health authority to our immigration authorities is going to be tough, it’s going to be challenging.”

But he told Stephanopoulos: “We have a plan. We’ve been executing our plan. It will take time but we have confidence that our plan will work. It has worked in the past.”