House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) said President Biden “will own the calamity” at the southern border following the repeal of the Title 42 policy, in a statement to Fox News on Saturday.
The policy, first implemented by the Trump administration in March 2020, allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents to immediately expel illegal border crossers in order to prevent the spread of Covid at border facilities.
The Biden administration renewed the policy in August 2021, but on Friday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention repealed Title 42, saying that treatments for Covid including vaccines are now widely available. While the repeal will not take effect until May 23, Republicans and some moderate Democrats have warned that the repeal could lead to a new influx of border crossings.
“This decision is wrong and will invite a lawless surge of illegal border crossings to enrich human traffickers and overwhelm our Border Patrol,” McCarthy said in a statement to Fox. “Make no mistake, the President will own the calamity his policies have created.”
McCarthy also said the “decision confirms that President Biden has abdicated his responsibilities at our borders and is actively working to make the border crisis worse.”
Several Democrats including Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Arizona senators Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema have also condemned the repeal.
“We are already facing an unprecedented increase in migrants this year, and that will only get worse if the Administration ends the Title 42 policy. We are nowhere near prepared to deal with that influx,” Manchin said in a statement on Friday.
U.S. Border Patrol chief Raul Ortiz said on Tuesday that his agency would likely reach 1 million apprehensions of migrants since the start of the 2021 fiscal year within days.
“Probably in the next two or three days we’ll get over a million encounters or apprehensions along the southwest border,” Ortiz said at a conference in San Antonio. Ortiz added that agents have apprehended migrants from 157 different countries.