Ending pandemic health order will cause human trafficking to expand, border expert says
WASHINGTON (TND) — More than 170,000 migrants are expected to flood the Mexico border in the event that Title 42 is lifted, according to reports. Through Title 42, a public health order implemented to reduce the spread of COVID-19, migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border are removed from the country.
The administration is leaning toward ending Title 42, according to Reuters, with the next deadline for renewal in early April. Officials have reportedly raised alarms that dropping Title 42 will result in human trafficking networks throughout Mexico and Central America to “generate a mass migration event,” reports Axios.
“If they were really serious about stopping trafficking, they would secure our borders, rather than create an environment for human trafficking to expand and then react to it after it's already happened,” said former acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan to The National Desk’s Jan Jeffcoat. “That 170,000 we’re talking about, that's a drop in the bucket of who's going to break into our country and our southwest border once these restrictions are lifted.”
An estimated 25,000 migrants are waiting south of the border for Title 42 to end, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Morgan said in terms of housing an influx of migrants, the cost will “fall on the backs of American taxpayers.”
“This is much more than the cost of dollars and cents by Americans. This is also Americans paying with their lives with respect to the open borders,” said Morgan. “This is about border security. And when you open your border up to one threat or one crisis — in this case, illegal immigration — you're opening your border up to the vast set of complex threats.”
In Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott marked the anniversary of a border security initiative, while announcing a new strategy to deter migrants from trying to cross the Rio Grande.
“This is another ongoing element of Gov. Abbott's Operation Lone Star and another very critical part of this strategy is to do what the Biden administration refuses to do. It really focuses on turnbacks,” said Morgan. “What Gov. Abbott’s strategy is going to do is put resources and personnel in key locations to do just that — to prevent and deter illegal aliens from actually making the way in the U.S.”
The Biden administration has created the Southwest Border Coordination Center to coordinate an interagency response to the influx of migrant activity at the border.
“This so-called 'war room,' this Coordination Center, it's not to actually do what they should be doing, which is to go to war against the cartels and take back our southern border that they have literally handed over to the cartels. Not at all. What they're doing in this war room, again, is to address the bad political optics because they know that they're going to see a massive increase in illegal immigration,” said Morgan.
