The United States will end a sweeping, pandemic-related expulsion policy that has effectively closed down the U.S. asylum system at the border with Mexico, U.S. health officials said on Friday, arguing it was no longer needed to protect public health, Trend reports citing Reuters.
The Title 42 order will remain in effect until May 23 to allow border officials time to prepare for its termination and to ramp up COVID-19 vaccines for arriving migrants, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a 30-page order.
"After considering current public health conditions and an increased availability of tools to fight COVID-19 (such as highly effective vaccines and therapeutics), the CDC Director has determined that an Order suspending the right to introduce migrants into the United States is no longer necessary," the CDC said in a separate statement.
The order was originally issued in March 2020 as countries around the world shuttered their borders amid COVID-19 fears and more than a million migrants and asylum seekers have been rapidly expelled under the policy since then.
The formal announcement comes after Reuters and other news outlets reported details of the plan on Wednesday.
U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, kept Title 42 in place after taking office in January 2021 despite fierce criticism from his own political party and campaign promises to reverse the restrictive immigration policies of his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump.
Leading Democrats, medical experts and the United Nations criticized Title 42, saying it expels migrants to dangerous places in Mexico, denies them their legal right to request asylum and that scientific evidence does not support its stated goal of limiting the spread of the virus.
Republicans have blasted Biden this week, saying lifting the pandemic restrictions would encourage more migrants to enter illegally at a time when border crossings are already breaking records.
Guatemala's government said on Friday that it expects the number of Guatemalans seeking to migrate to rise after the U.S. government ends its Title 42 expulsion policy.