For the past year, the U.S. southern border has been inundated with illegal border crossings. In fact, every month in 2021 saw a new record in terms of encounters between Border Patrol agents and illegal aliens trying to break into the country.
However, the over 2 million illegal alien encounters in 2021 took place during a period of time when Title 42 was in place.
Back in March 2020, President Donald Trump implemented Title 42, an emergency health provision that essentially closed the border to non-essential travel. It allowed for Border Patrol agents to turn back and expel illegal aliens almost immediately—rather than placing them into custody and going through a lengthy deportation process.
There were some caveats introduced to Title 42 under Joe Biden—for unaccompanied children and family units—however, the point is that even with Title 42 in place, the United States saw a record number of illegal crossings.
Why is this important? Because a few days ago, the Biden administration announced that they are officially lifting Title 42 altogether.
And it’s that fact, along with an Ant Operation by the Mexican government to transport over 70,000 Central Americans to the border, that is leading many experts to conclude that we are about to experience a tidal wave of illegal alien crossings.
And in order to make sense of what’s really happening, we spoke with Todd Bensman, a senior national security fellow with the Center for Immigration Studies.
