President Joe Biden will sunset a Trump-era order that turned away migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, a policy that had baffled public health experts and migrant advocates. The order, imposed at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, claimed to be an effort to reduce COVID cases in the U.S., but health experts and some officials believed it had an underlying political motive. Still, the Biden administration extended the program, drawing ire from migrant advocates. The program will end on May 23, the Department of Homeland Security said, giving experts time to set up a COVID vaccination clinic and prepare for increases in migrant numbers. “Once the Title 42 Order is no longer in place, DHS will process individuals encountered at the border pursuant to Title 8, which is the standard procedure we use to place individuals in removal proceedings,” said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in a statement Friday.
