The Biden administration has made it clear that it intends to allow Title 42 to officially end on May 23. U.S. authorities have expelled migrants more than 1.7 million times under Title 42 authority, named for a 1944 public health law, using the threat of COVID-19 to deny migrants a chance to seek asylum as required under U.S. law and international treaty.
Biden feeling the pressure?A constitutional law firm believes Title 42 could sink the Democratic Party if Joe Biden moves forward with plans to scrap the Trump-era program. Matthew C. Forys, Assistant General Counsel for the Landmark Legal Foundation, predicts such a move could have a "tremendous impact" at the ballot box in November – particularly among Democrats. "The president is getting pressure from Senators Mark Kelly from Arizona, Maggie Hassan from New Hampshire, Katherine Cortez Masto in Nevada – these are all vulnerable Democrats [who are] speaking very loudly," the attorney tells American Family News. "And a big indication of the seriousness of this is that Senator [Christopher] Coons from Delaware – one of [Biden's] closest allies in the Senate – is also starting to talk about the need to back off on this." Democrats on Capitol Hill are demonstrating a lack of faith in the Biden administration, according to Forys. "I think politicians are very practical people and can see the writing on the wall," he states. "And if a couple of those vulnerable Democrats have looked to pass legislation to extend the termination of Title 42, it's a very good sign the Biden administration is going to look to delay it a little bit longer." Still, says the attorney, there are no guarantees because, in his view, the Democrats have "messed up a lot of their policies." But if they aren't successful in delaying the president's plans, Forys predicts there will be "serious political consequences." |
But a growing number of Democrats (see sidebar) are suddenly coming out of the woodwork, calling for an extension of Title 42 – perhaps panicking because of the political fallout such a move is expected to bring at the ballot box in November. One of those is Senator Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat up for reelection this year, who toured the border last week and warned that the Biden administration is unprepared for asylum restrictions to be lifted.
Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for America Immigration Reform (FAIR), says it's no surprise that politicians coming up for reelection are closely watching the polls.
"[Democratic politicians] understand that what the Biden administration is doing down there at the border is extremely unpopular. It has virtually no public support other than very small pockets of very woke voters in some coastal cities," Mehlman tells AFN.
"[That's why] you have a lot of vulnerable Democrats like Maggie Hassan, the senator from New Hampshire who is up for reelection, and the two [Democratic] senators from Arizona … speaking up about this. And you have members of the Texas Democratic House delegation who are complaining about this."
But Mehlman suggests voters shouldn't fall for what he calls "fake concern" by Democratic lawmakers.
"I think the American public is generally skeptical about politicians – and look, it's not just the border that has Maggie Hassan troubled," the FAIR spokesman continues. "It is reckless record inflation levels [and] all sorts of things that are going on that obviously have a lot of Democrats very, very scared heading into the midterms."
Mehlman says the administration could turn things around quite quickly if they chose to backtrack on their radical dismantling of immigration enforcement. President Biden, however, is showing no signs of revisiting his open-borders policy that conservative activist Gary Bauer contends violates the chief executive's constitutional duties to enforce U.S. immigration laws.
Biden in violation since Day 1: Bauer
According to federal data obtained by the Washington Examiner, since Biden took office 42 people on the U.S. government's terror watch list have been arrested attempting to illegally enter the United States. Obviously, those arrests don't include anyone on that list who might have slipped into the country without being detected.
Bauer, chairman of Campaign for Working Families, slammed the president's border policy during a recent appearance on American Family Radio.
"Joe Biden is in violation of his constitutional duties to enforce our border laws," Bauer stated bluntly. "He's been in violation of that 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks of the year since he took the oath of office. So, he is clearly in violation of his constitutional duties."
However, he tends to discourage any discussion about Biden's border neglect being an impeachable offense.
"I wouldn't recommend to the Republicans that they run on this for this November," he advises. "I think they need to talk about things and ideas that are going to help the American people.
"But quite frankly," he adds, "the biggest thing they could do to help the American people would be to bring this administration to heel by making them enforce the law and follow the Constitution instead of what they're doing right now."
Bauer also reminds voters that these border apprehensions are just the tip of the iceberg.
4/22/2022 - Sidebar added.
