Washington — The Trump administration has prepared plans to implement a policy that would allow U.S. immigration officials to swiftly expel migrants on the grounds that they could spread diseases like tuberculosis, according to internal government documents obtained by CBS News.
The plans would revive a border measure known as Title 42 that the first Trump administration enacted at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 to authorize summary expulsions of migrants. The Biden administration kept that policy in place amid record levels of illegal crossings at the U.S. southern border until letting it expire in 2023.
The revival of Title 42 would also add another layer to an unprecedented web of border measures enacted by President Trump since taking office to close down the American asylum system.
One of those actions has allowed U.S. border officials to quickly deport migrants from the U.S., without granting them an opportunity to request asylum, a right foreigners have under domestic and international refugee law. The authority underpinning that policy, called 212(f), permits presidents to ban the entry of foreigners whose arrival is deemed to be “detrimental” to the U.S.
But the new measure 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 illegally.
The internal documents obtained by CBS News indicate the CDC is 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 communicable diseases like tuberculosis.
Customs and Border Protection officials would be charged 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 documents show. Just like the 212(f) proclamation, the Title 42 order would allow border agents to ignore U.S. immigration law, denying migrants the right to seek asylum.
It’s unclear when exactly the administration plans to invoke Title 42, but officials across agencies have been preparing for the policy change. Representatives for the CDC and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees CBP, did not respond to requests for comment.
The renewed invocation of Title 42 would likely be contested by public health experts. In 2020, the Trump administration pressured the CDC to invoke Title 42, despite opposition from subject matter experts at the agency who believed the move was not rooted in public health and was instead a way for officials to further President Trump’s immigration crackdown.
While the stated rationale behind the invocation of Title 42 is to reduce overcrowding in immigration detention facilities and the potential spread of diseases, migrant crossings at the southern border have plunged since Mr. Trump’s inauguration.
Officials have been recording an average of fewer than 300 illegal border crossings per day recently, a more than 90% drop from February 2024, Border Patrol chief Mike Banks told CBS News in an interview on Thursday.
The Trump administration’s plan will also almost certainly trigger legal challenges. Federal judges found that the COVID-era Title 42 order could not override U.S. asylum law or legal protections Congress created for unaccompanied children, whom the Trump administration expelled under the measure.
How the Title 42 order would interact with Mr. Trump’s other border policies, including the 212(f) proclamation, is unclear. But the 212(f) order is at risk of being halted by the courts due a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
“It’s clear that they’re just sort of pulling out all the stops, and the goal is literally stopping people from entering the United States, not processing anybody under the immigration law,” said Theresa Cardinal Brown, a former U.S. immigration official during the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
