Title 42 expulsion

Title 42 expulsion refers to the practice by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) of summarily removing migrants encountered at land borders under the authority of Title 42 of the US Code, a public-health statute dating to 1944. The specific provision invoked, codified at 42 U.S.C. § 265, allows the Surgeon General (in practice the CDC Director) to suspend the introduction of persons into the United States when there is a serious danger of communicable disease spread.

The order was first issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in March 2020 under the Trump administration, citing COVID-19. It was maintained, with modifications, by the Biden administration. Unlike removals under Title 8 (the Immigration and Nationality Act), Title 42 expulsions:

• carried no formal immigration consequences such as a multi-year bar on reentry, which critics argued encouraged repeat crossing attempts;
• generally bypassed asylum screening, including the credible-fear interview process required by US obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol;
• could be carried out in minutes or hours rather than days or weeks.

The policy was challenged in multiple lawsuits. In Huisha-Huisha v. Mayorkas (D.D.C. 2022), a federal court ruled that expelling families to places where they faced persecution or torture was unlawful. UNHCR, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International criticized the order as inconsistent with the principle of non-refoulement.

Title 42 expulsions ended on 11 May 2023, when the federal COVID-19 public health emergency expired. CBP data reported roughly 2.8 million expulsions under the order between March 2020 and May 2023, though this figure counts events rather than unique individuals because many migrants were expelled multiple times. After Title 42 lapsed, processing returned to Title 8 authorities, paired with new asylum restrictions such as the 2023 "Circumvention of Lawful Pathways" rule.