24 MAR 2022
Advocates for Children and Families Demand Immediate End to Title 42
Policy Is “An Affront to Family and Child Protection”
WASHINGTON, DC - For two years, a stranglehold has been in place at the U.S. southern border to block refugees—including families with young children—from making an application for asylum. That stranglehold is known as “Title 42,” a provision in U.S. law that gives the government emergency powers to stop the “introduction of communicable diseases.”
Title 42 was a Trump-crafted policy implemented at the beginning of the pandemic, but the Biden administration has continued it to this day. As the policy turns two—the same age as many of the children it has harmed—advocates for children and families are demanding its immediate end.
“Title 42 puts children and families in harm’s way, and KIND stands firmly against continuation of this failed policy rooted in the last Administration,” said KIND President Wendy Young. “KIND has worked with children expelled from the U.S.-Mexico border under Title 42 who faced further harm and trauma as a result. One young girl was turned away and then hit by a car. In another case, a girl who fled Guatemala after being raped made her way to the United States with her infant, only to be expelled and put on a flight back to Guatemala, without the chance to make her case for protection in the United States. Thousands of children alone have faced similar treatment. It is beyond time for the Biden Administration to put an end to Title 42, which is an affront to family and child protection.”
Through Title 42, families and children from Central America, Haiti, and other places have been summarily expelled—adults in shackles—back to nations they fled, in violation of refugees’ international right to seek safe asylum. Haitian Bridge Alliance tweeted: “2 yrs ago today, we started calling for the end of #Title42. As we watched 210 deportation flights (to date) get sent to Haiti - including infants and pregnant women - we’re again saying: there’s no justification to #Title42 and #ImmigrationIsABlackIssue!”
The Children Thrive Action Network is a national network of advocates and stakeholders committed to protecting and defending children in immigrant families. “As experts in child development, we stand with members of the Children Thrive Action Network (CTAN) in opposing the continued use of the Title 42 policy to deport families and children—including babies—to danger,” said Wendy Cervantes, director of immigration and immigrant families at the Center for Law and Social Policy. “While we appreciate the Biden Administration’s decision not to apply this policy to children arriving here alone, we urge them to safeguard the well-being of all children and families by ending the misguided policy completely. We must welcome and protect all those seeking safety—for the good of them and our entire country.”
Title 42 has created “a new record of suffering,” reports Human Rights First. The organization has tracked nearly 10,000 kidnappings, torture, rape, and other violent attacks against people who were forced to remain in Mexico or expelled there due to Title 42 and the equally disastrous “Remain In Mexico” policy. This figure does not even include attacks on people expelled to Haiti and other nations.
Gladis Molina Alt, Executive Director of the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, explained: “By turning away children who seek protection with their parents, Title 42 forces families to either remain together in situations where they face violence, kidnapping, or murder, or to separate in order to protect their children. No family should be put in that position. Title 42 perpetrates new family separations at the same time that the Biden administration’s Family Reunification Task Force is trying to reunify families separated by the prior administration.”
“For two years, the U.S. government has shamefully employed Title 42 to expel asylum-seeking children and families, knowingly putting them at risk of well-document dangers including extortion, rape, kidnapping and other violent crimes. This harmful and inhumane policy must be revoked, in full, immediately,” said Save the Children’s Vice President of Policy, Advocacy and Campaigns, Christy Gleason. “As public health experts have explained time again, Title 42 is not based on scientifically grounded public health evidence and does not prevent the spread of COVID-19. It simply prevents children and families from seeking asylum protections, in violation of our long-standing American principle of being a safe-haven for the persecuted and our responsibilities under refugee protection laws.”
Over 375,000 grassroots advocates with Save the Children Action Network have sent more than 90,000 messages to Congress and the Trump and Biden White Houses, urging them to revoke this harmful policy.
Added President of First Focus on Children, Bruce Lesley: “On the policy’s second anniversary, we reiterate our call for the Biden Administration to end the expulsion of people seeking safety at our borders, including children in families, without consideration for their safety. We are pleased that the President no longer uses Title 42 to turn back unaccompanied children, but the continued expulsion of children in families — and single adults, who are sometimes their caregivers — harms children by returning them to violence and separating them from family members. We urge the Administration to end Title 42 for everyone and to embrace policies that keep children safe and with their families.”
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