Title 42 allows the United States government to restrict entry to many migrants seeking asylum that come from areas once hit hard by COVID-19.
With Title 42 set to end Thursday, all migrant encounters will now proceed under Title 8 which comes with additional processing and intake procedures.
Since March 2020, there have been 5.5 million migrant encounters at the nation’s southern border.
About 1.2 million of those happened at Arizona’s border and 44% were turned away using Title 42. Around half of the nearly 4.5 million encounters at the remainder of the border were Title 42 expulsions.
There was a time when Title 42 expulsions were upwards of 90% or more of migrant encounters, according to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol data. That time has long passed, ending in late 2021.
Since then, Title 42 apprehensions have trended down and are frequently less than half in recent months.
Title 42 expulsions are mostly single adults.
Of the migrant encounters since the beginning of the USCBP fiscal year, four million were single adults and 62% of those encounters fell under Title 42.
One in five of the 1.5 million family units apprehended were expelled using Title 42.
The smallest group, unaccompanied minors, made up about 400,000 apprehensions and Title 42 only applied 4% of the time.
It also mainly impacts migrants holding citizenship in Central American countries.
Four of the top five countries migrants hail from since 2020 are Central American, with Cubans being the exception.
Mexican citizens are more frequently turned away with Title 42 being cited in 80% of encounters. Over half of the encounters of migrants from Guatemala and Honduras are also Title 42.
In fact, since 2020, seventy percent of the 3.7 million migrant encounters of Central Americans resulted in a Title 42 expulsion. Of the 2.1 million encounters with migrants from other countries that number was nine percent.
