Joaquin Castro Begs Joe Biden to Expand Catch and Release of Border Crossers

One of the only remaining border controls President Joe Biden’s administration has left in place, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Title 42 order, should be done “away with” by the end of the year, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) says.

In early 2020, former President Trump invoked the CDC’s Title 42 authority that gives federal immigration officials the ability to quickly detain and return border crossers to their native countries.

Title 42 has proven incredibly effective in keeping a lid on illegal immigration to the U.S., a group of House Republicans has said, as the policy is one of the only Trump-era orders Biden has kept in place. The new administration ended policies like the “Remain in Mexico” program and cooperative asylum agreements with Central America during Biden’s first few weeks in office.

In an interview with Axios, Castro said the Biden administration should end Title 42 by the end of the year. The move, as Castro admits, would allow thousands of border crossers who would otherwise be returned to their native countries to make asylum claims and secure release into the U.S. interior.

“My concern is that we need to be able to properly allow people as soon as possible to petition for asylum. Under Title 42, under public health, folks are being summarily expelled. In other words, they’re not being given any consideration or due process with respect to their asylum petition except for unaccompanied minors and a limited number of families,” Castro said:

And so we shouldn’t be here a year from now discussing Title 42. The Biden administration needs to be able to build up the capacity to handle the flow of asylum seekers, move them to their relevant sponsors and family quickly, and also do away with Title 42. In other words, not invoke Title 42 and give these people their day in court for asylum. [Emphasis added]

From March 2020 to March 2021, Title 42 has kept nearly 640,000 border crossers out of the U.S. Since Biden took office, nearly 178,000 border crossers have been quickly returned to their native countries under Title 42 authority — many of which who would have otherwise been released into the U.S. interior.

Even with Title 42 in place, the Biden administration has massively revamped the Catch and Release program. At least about 42,000 border crossers have been released into the U.S. interior since Biden took office. This is four times the population of Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Analysts project that federal immigration officials will encounter about 1.2 million border crossers by the end of the year — a rate of illegal immigration not seen since the Great Recession.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.