DHS says border ‘is working as intended’ after Title 42

The Homeland Security Department said it has “repatriated” roughly 1,700 illegal immigrants per day since the end of Title 42, or less than 40% of the unauthorized migrants showing up at the southern border in recent weeks.

Officials released the numbers Tuesday in anticipation of two hearings on Capitol Hill that will delve into the administration’s handling of the border in the wake of Title 42, the pandemic border emergency that had allowed the government to expel people quickly.

Title 42 expired on May 11. Homeland Security had anticipated a massive surge of migrants, but instead the numbers dropped dramatically.

Border Patrol agents, who had been nabbing 10,000 people a day along the southwestern border just before the end of Title 42, averaged roughly 3,400 a day after the authority ended.

Customs and Border Protection officers, who man the border crossings, recorded another 1,370 migrants a day, for a total of about 4,770 a day.

Of those, Homeland Security said it had repatriated 38,400 between May 12 and June 2, or about 1,750 a day.

The remainder were either caught and released or transferred to other agencies within the U.S.

An additional 1,000 unauthorized migrants per day were allowed to enter via airports as part of the government’s new program for Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans.

That program, and another one at the border, both rely on Homeland Security’s power of “parole,” which has facilitated catch-and-release of more than 1.5 million people since October 2021.

The administration is harnessing parole to try to push would-be illegal immigrants to come to the U.S. via parole instead. If they come as parolees, they schedule appointments and show up to be processed by CBP officers, rather than jump the border to be apprehended by Border Patrol agents.

“The Administration’s plan is working as intended,” the department said in announcing the numbers Tuesday.

But officials said they are not yet declaring victory, saying “the conditions in the hemisphere that are driving unprecedented movements of people are still present” and cartels are still looking to profit off the flow of people.

“We will remain vigilant and continue to execute our plan, making adjustments where needed,” the department said.

Homeland Security did not give a breakdown of the “repatriations” so it’s not clear how many were formally deported.

Indeed, it’s likely that many of those are what’s known as “voluntary returns,” where a migrant is caught and agrees to be pushed back across the border without a formal deportation. They are then free to try to enter again.

In that respect, such cases are similar to the operations under Title 42, when illegal immigrants could be expelled back across the border without a formal deportation.

Early numbers obtained by The Washington Times nearly a week after the end of Title 42 showed that voluntary returns accounted for about half of the population that had previously been subject to Title 42 exclusion.