Rep. Chu Welcomes Decision to Terminate Title 42

Statement

Today, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas announced the termination of the Title 42 public health order that has, since March 2020, required the expulsion of nearly 2 million immigrants and refugees seeking a legal right to asylum. On February 14, Reps. Judy Chu (CA-27), Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), and Nydia Velázquez (NY-07) led 33 other House Democrats on a letter to Rochelle Walensky, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, demanding answers about the agency's justification for treating asylum seekers as a unique public health threat, how these expulsions are being coordinated, and how the agency's actions interact with America's legal obligation to screen people in order to ensure they are not returned to a place where they are likely to face harm and more. Rep. Chu issued the following statement:

"We do not need to fear immigrants. But that was the message being sent by the continued use of Title 42 at our southern border. Even as we began to admit refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan, Title 42 expulsions along the U.S-Mexico border treated migrants, disproportionately migrants of color from Central America and Haiti, as unique public health threats, a lie which we know contributes to xenophobia and discrimination. That is why I am so glad to see this order being terminated. We have turned a corner in this pandemic at our workplaces, our schools, and our airports. It is time to do the same at our borders. There was simply no justification for continuing to use Title 42 as a means of controlling the flow of migrants, many of whom have a legal right to have their asylum cases heard in court, and I thank President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas for ending this Trump-era exclusion."

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