Smugglers Are Using Title 42 to Exploit Migrants

Smugglers Are Using Title 42 to Exploit Migrants

(RightWing.org) – In 2020, former President Donald Trump used his executive power to order 42 U.S. Code § 265 (commonly referred to as Title 42) to be applied to illegal immigrants coming over the border. It allowed the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency to quickly process or expel those caught in the early days of the pandemic. While Democrats and Liberals demonized him for keeping potentially infected people out of the United States, President Joe Biden has continued that policy.

However, Biden let it lapse at 11:59 p.m. on May 11, which is giving rise to a serious problem that, in reality, shouldn’t take anybody by surprise. Unsavory characters, many of them belonging to the Mexican cartels, who flout the law on a daily basis, are preying on the people hoping that the end of Title 42 will allow them to make their way into America.

Coyotes, Not the Wile E. Kind

Human smugglers that work to bring illegal immigrants across the border of the Southwest United States are called coyotes, possibly because they slink their way through the desert like their animal namesake. It has been reported that these groups have been spreading misinformation to the tens of thousands of people crammed into cities and camps just on the Mexican side of the border.

According to Reuters, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcello Ebrard said that news of the end of Title 42 is being spread to potential illegal border crossers by “smugglers who are charging up to $7000 (sic) with offers to bring migrants into the US once the policy ends.”

In another story, Reuters reported huge numbers of individuals are amassing in border towns across Brownsville, Texas, all the way to the San Diego, California/Tijuana, Mexico area, where people are camping in deplorable conditions between the border walls. Recent drone footage that has been released shows some of the crowds in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, which is located just across from El Paso, Texas.

The reporter spoke to a 30-year-old woman who would only identify herself as Diana, who described how the group of women and children left Columbia, flew to El Salvador, and then rode a bus through Central America and Mexico because they had “heard that Title 42 was going to end.” Even before the end of the pandemic-era policy, on May 8-9, the CBP had already caught more than 10,000 illegal crossers on each of those days.

A fact sheet posted to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) website on May 10 announced that in cooperation with the Department of State, they have launched “additional digital advertising campaigns in Central and South America… [warning] that individuals who unlawfully crossed the US Southwest border will be presumed ineligible for asylum.”

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