Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin is urging the Biden administration against ending the pandemic public health order used to quickly expel migrants at the border.
Manchin said Thursday that the administration should scrap its reported plans to end the policy, which is known as Title 42, and should even consider “permanency for [T]itle 42,” according to Politico.
“Oh my goodness. Just watch the news y’all put out every day, what’s coming across,” Manchin said when explaining his reasoning for opposing the lifting of Title 42, according to CNN.
Manchin tells us that the administration should drop plans to scrap Trump-era Title 42 border policy. Asked why he’s opposed to lifting Title 42. “Oh my goodness. Just watch the news y’all put out every day, what’s coming across.”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) March 31, 2022
“They should reconsider. I’m against removing title 42. If anything we’d be looking at permanency for title 42. Maybe that would spur us to get a good immigration policy that works for the borders. The borders have to be secure,” Manchin says of Biden admin.
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) March 31, 2022
The order, which was put in place by the Trump administration in March 2020 and has resulted in the expulsion of over 1.7 million migrants, is expected to end in May, The New York Times reported. (RELATED: ‘The Calm Before The Storm’: Law Enforcement Prepares For Migrant Deluge Ahead Of Biden’s Title 42 Decision)
Manchin sent a letter Wednesday to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Rochelle Walensky asking her to extend the policy, citing the spread of COVID-19 and its variants.
“The current Order under Title 42 suspending the right to introduce certain persons into the United States has been an important tool in combatting the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Manchin said in a statement regarding the letter.
“With encounters along our southern border surging and the highly-transmissible Omicron BA.2 subvariant emerging as the dominate strain in the United States, now is not the time to throw caution to the wind. I urge you to again renew this commonsense policy that has been in effect—under both Republican and Democratic Administrations—since March 2020,” he added.
Manchin’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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