White House Announces New Title 42 Caveat for Unaccompanied Alien Children

Late last Friday, the White House announced that it plans to exempt unaccompanied alien children (UAC) from the pandemic border ‘shutdown’ known as Title 42. The Biden Admin. stated that it revisited the issue and decided that when it comes to the possible spread of Covid19, alien children who show up without parents aren’t as much of a risk as other illegal border jumpers.

The decision, which originated in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was reportedly prompted by a legal ruling that found an earlier version of the policy may have been issued illegally.

The Washington Times reports CDC Director Rochelle Walensky stated that UAC arrivals encountered by enforcement officers and quickly transferred to the custody of Health and Human Services are fundamentally different from the family units and single adults who are released almost immediately after capture.

Because of this difference, Walensky wrote in a new policy update:

CDC thus finds, at this time, there is appropriate infrastructure in place to protect the children, caregivers and local and destination communities from elevated risk of COVID-19 transmission.

Despite this policy update, the Biden Admin. chose to keep the rest of Title 42 in place, seeing approximately half of all illegal aliens encountered at the border each month turned back to Mexico or expelled to their home countries. Under the Trump Administration, nearly 100% of monthly illegal border crossers were denied entry and expelled to Mexico.

When Bien took office, to the dismay of many within his party, he decided to keep Title 42 in place, adding a select carve-out for UAC arrivals saying it was “cruel” to expel minors who made the dangerous journey across the border. Unsurprisingly, when the White House announced this caveat, the number of UAC crossing the border skyrocketed to an all-time high. Currently, UAC encounters average about 365 per day.

However, a federal judge ruled that the UAC carve-out was issued illegally and must be withdrawn last week. The judge gave the Admin. a week-long grace period to comply with his ruling or take additional action by Friday. With a more detailed discussion of reasoning, the new policy update was the Admin’s response.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement:

CDC addresses the court’s concerns and has determined, after considering current public health conditions and recent developments, that expulsion of unaccompanied non-citizen children is not warranted to protect the public health.

Nonetheless, progressive Democrats and open-border advocates are putting extreme pressure on the Biden Admin. to end Title 42 altogether. But experts argue that the pandemic border order is all that is keeping the historic surge of illegal aliens from ballooning into a full-fledged meltdown of the U.S. immigration system.

For more information, please visit The Washington Times.