Source: United States Senator for North Dakota John Hoeven
04.19.22
Senator Working to Extend Title 42 Order and Secure the Border
DEL RIO, TX – Senator John Hoeven, a member of the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Committee, today traveled to Del Rio and Eagle Pass, Texas to call attention to the ongoing illegal immigration crisis at the southern border, meet with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials and review the missions of North Dakota Guard members deployed to the southern border.
“We appreciate the opportunity to meet with CBP and North Dakota National Guard members, who are working to secure our border despite the increasing number of individuals crossing the border illegally,” said Hoeven. “The growing crisis at the border is due to the Biden administration’s policies and their lack of enforcement of key immigration tools, like the Remain in Mexico Policy, Third Safe Country Agreement and Title 42. Now, the administration wants to end Title 42 in the coming weeks. This is the wrong approach and will only exacerbate an already impossible situation for our border patrol agents.”
In early October, approximately 125 soldiers from the North Dakota Army National Guard left for a year-long mission to the southern border. Hoeven met with the North Dakota soldiers to draw attention to their work at the border.
In February 2022, CBP encountered almost 165,000 individuals attempting to cross the border illegally, a 63% increase from February 2021 and a 353% increase from February 2020. Despite the increase in migrants crossing the border, the administration announced that it would rescind the Title 42 Public Health Order on May 23, 2022.
Hoeven has been working to extend the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) Title 42 Public Health Order, an important tool that allows immigration officials to return illegal immigrants to their home country and prevent the spread of COVID-19. Hoeven helped introduce legislation to extend Title 42 until February 2025. The senator also recently pressed the Biden administration to enforce the law and outlined the importance of Title 42 and other key immigration policies at a press conference, and has been pushing DHS for its plan to secure the border.
At the same time, Hoeven has been working to reinstate other key immigration policies, including:
- The Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) or Remain in Mexico Policy, which required people seeking asylum at the southern border to wait in Mexico while their case was adjudicated.
- The Safe Third Country Agreements so those seeking asylum from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala can be returned to their home country to await the outcome of their claims.
- To resume construction of the border wall and put in place the infrastructure, personnel and technology needed to secure the border.
As part of his efforts to secure the border, the senator previously traveled to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas to meet with border patrol and local leaders about the ongoing illegal immigration crisis at the southern border. In addition, Hoeven traveled with a bipartisan congressional delegation to Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia and Guatemala to discuss bilateral relations, including the need to work together to stop illegal migration and prevent human and drug trafficking.
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