DHS Secretary: Border encounters dropped 50% after the end of Title 42

“The sky is falling.  The sky is falling.”  I was reminded of that refrain as critics attacked President Biden’s lifting of the Title 42 border closure order, which originally was entered by the Trump administration in March 2020.  

UPI reports that there has been a 50% drop in encounters at the U.S./Mexico border in the two days following the end of Title 42 according to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Title 42 has been used to rapidly expel more than 2.8 million migrants and asylum seekers.  The order expired midnight Thursday.  There had been great concern that its lifting would lead to a flood of migrants and asylum seekers attempting to enter the United States.

Mayorkas told Jonathan Karl on ABC’s This Week yesterday that such a surge has yet to be seen. “In fact, over the past two days, the United States border patrol has seen an approximately 50% drop in the number of people encountered at our southern border as compared to the numbers earlier this week before Title 42 came to an end,” he said. Mayorkas credited the drop to the administration of President Joe Biden, which in the lead up to Title 42’s expiration initiated a slew measures — some controversial — at stemming the potential increase. “We have been preparing for this transition for months and months, and we’ve been executing our plan accordingly,” Mayorkas said.

KJ