[News Terms] Ended US Immigrant Deportation Policy 'Title 42'

'Title 42' refers to Section 42 of the U.S. Public Health Service Act, which allows the United States to close its borders unconditionally when an international epidemic poses a risk of spreading within the country.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump, aiming to block illegal immigrants entering the U.S. from South America, invoked the nearly obsolete 'Title 42,' originally created in the 1910s, by issuing an executive order in March 2020. Title 42, a regulation suspending asylum applications at the border to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, was reused for the first time in 70 years since the end of World War II, resulting in the immediate expulsion of entrants crossing the border without separate screening.

Immigrants hoping to enter the United States are crossing the Rio Grande River in Tamaulipas, northern Mexico, which borders the United States, on the 11th (local time), carrying a baby on a mattress.
[Photo by AFP/ Yonhap News]

Although the official reason was to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the prevailing view was that it was an attempt to rally the conservative base around anti-immigration and anti-refugee issues. Over the past three years, this executive order led to 2.5 million border expulsions, with some individuals being expelled multiple times.

With the termination of the Title 42 executive order at noon on the 12th (Korean time) after three years, the southern U.S. border region is reaching saturation due to the influx of immigrants. The loophole in U.S. immigration law, which allows crossing the border without a visa and prohibits expulsion until the asylum court decision is made, has provided an opportunity for illegal entrants from almost every country worldwide, including Latin America, China, Afghanistan, and North Korea, to flock to the U.S. border. In particular, the unstable political situations, security vacuums, and resulting extreme poverty in Latin American countries suggest that migration to the U.S. will continue unabated.

Major border cities, including El Paso, have already declared a state of emergency, and the U.S. government has deployed an additional 15,000 troops in preparation for the surge in immigrants. According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, approximately 660,000 people have been waiting since early this month to cross the border from Mexico, and with the end of Title 42, it is expected that about 15,000 people will cross illegally each day, totaling approximately 5.5 million annually.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.