“The Joe Biden administration had two years to prepare for this and it didn’t. Migrants will be in crisis next week,” Sinema said in an interview with CBS News.
Title 42, a pandemic-era policy that allowed the United States to more easily expel migrants seeking asylum at the border, will end on May 11 when the Covid-19 public health emergency declaration ends.
Sinema and fellow Senator Thom Tillis introduced a bipartisan bill last week to extend President Biden’s authority to remove immigrants without a hearing, even after Title 42 is lifted.
The proposal “is about fixing this, giving us some time and space for the government to do its job, and for us legislators to actually create a plan that can be passed by both the House and the Senate,” Sinema told CBS News.
Likewise, she criticized the federal government for its inaction regarding the immigration situation on the border between the United States and Mexico.
The Joe Biden administration has been intensifying its preparations for the end of the current regulation for days, including the deployment of 1,500 soldiers on the southern border, as well as the establishment of immigrant processing centers throughout Latin America.
The Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, emphasized that Title 8 will be applied starting this week, a policy that allows “expelling people very quickly”, and that includes a ban on re-entry and criminal proceedings.
“The border is not open. It has not been open, and will not be open after May 11. Smugglers who exploit vulnerable migrants are spreading misinformation,” he was quoted as saying by Fox News.
Under this rule, in theory, migrants’ applications would be barred if they cross the border illegally and do not apply for asylum in a country through which they have already traveled.
With this norm, the consequence will be more severe, remarked Mayorkas.
Troy Miller, the top official at the US Customs and Border Protection, recently told Congress that his agency expects up to 10,000 migrants to arrive every day after the end of Title 42, which would nearly double the daily average of March.
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