‘Extra-Continentals’ Enter U.S. Through Title 42 Exemptions

Shredding a federal court order that required continued Title 42 expulsions at the southern border, the Biden administration is admitting large numbers of “extra-continental” aliens from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

“A roaring, expanding conveyor belt of buses and airplanes is hauling thousands of previously expellable crossers into American cities, out of earshot or sight of the American public,” Todd Bensman of the Center for Immigration Studies reported from the U.S.-Mexico border this month.

Though U.S. District Judge Robert Summerhays last month rejected the administration’s bid to lift the Title 42 health order, Bensman witnessed countless border crossings of single adult aliens from across the globe. These authorized admissions are building on earlier exemptions that admitted hundreds of thousands of family groups, unaccompanied minors, and pregnant women.

The day before Judge Summerhays’ ruling, U.S. Border Patrol chief Raul Ortiz outlined plans for more releases of illegal aliens into the country. USBP has not retracted or modified that guidance. As a result, expulsions this spring have declined in Texas, even as Border Patrol encounters increased.

By flouting both the spirit and the letter of Title 42, the Biden administration invites more to come. Indeed, another historically large caravan of migrants is heading north this month with every expectation that they, too, will be welcomed at the border with a full suite of services, including transportation into the U.S. interior.

Reporting from Texas’ busy Del Rio sector, Bensman observed, “The Department of Homeland Security is permitting so many to stay that chartered bus services, as well as American Airlines planes at the nearby Del Rio International Airport, now move them into America for hours on end seven days per week.”

(FAIR is calling for the public’s help to expose the administration’s surreptitious cross-country flights, and get them stopped.)

According to a recent POLITICO-Harvard poll, 55 percent of voters oppose attempts to halt Title 42 expulsions. More than one in three of Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats objects to his extra-legal maneuvers.

As more extra-continentals are admitted in defiance of law, the president’s standing with the public doesn’t figure to improve.