Trump Admin Preparing To Reject Migrants Over Claims They Could Spread Diseases: Report

The Trump administration is reportedly planning to bring back Title 42, a measure he used during his first term to quickly expel migrants on the grounds that they could spread diseases.

The new measure, displayed in internal documents, would invoke the Public Health Service Act, found in Title 42 of the U.S. code, to empower officials to expel migrants without any of the processing outlined in federal immigration law, which says those on U.S. soil can request asylum even if they enter the country unlawfully.

The internal documents, obtained by CBS News, outline that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are planning to issue an order that would label unauthorized migrants trying to enter the U.S. as public health risks, citing concerns that they could spread diseases like tuberculosis.

Under the enacted measure, Customs and Border Protection officials would be tasked with enforcing the CDC's order and directed to expeditiously expel migrants to Mexico, their home country or third nations willing to accept them, the outlet detailed.

The document didn't detail when exactly the administration plans to invoke the measure, but officials across agencies have been preparing for the policy change, the report says.

Title 42 was used during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 by the Trump administration to expel millions of migrants on the grounds that newcomers could further spread the pandemic across the country. The Biden administration kept that policy in place amid record levels of unauthorized crossings at the southern border until letting it expire in 2023.

The new document doesn't come as a surprise, considering the Trump administration has taken several steps to curb down immigration and restrict asylum requests, and officials have also shown support for the measure.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff and one of the key architects of Trump's migration crackdown, Stephen Miller, anticipated to The New York Times last year that he would invoke the program again to combat "severe strains of the flu, tuberculosis, scabies, other respiratory illnesses like R.S.V. and so on, or just a general issue of mass migration being a public health threat and conveying a variety of communicable diseases."

Likewise, in December, now White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration would be looking at Title 42 once again as part of the planned "mass deportation operation."

While the White House has not commented on the recent document or revealed any concrete plans regarding the program, it is almost certain that it will be met with legal challenges. Federal judges found during the pandemic that Title 42 could not override U.S. asylum law or legal protections Congress created for unaccompanied children, whom the Trump administration had deported under the measure.