Title 42 Expulsions
Race Discrimination Disguised as Public Health
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the government invoked Title 42, a 1944 public health law, to quickly expel immigrants at the border and deny entry to asylum seekers. This provision was applied in a discriminatory manner. In 2021, the government summarily expelled over 15,000 Haitian asylum seekers, mostly under this authority, despite having just deemed Haiti unsafe. In contrast, it exempted Ukrainians fleeing the war with Russia from the Title 42 regime and allowed them to cross the border.
Based on available data from March 2020–May 2022, the U.S. government issued 1,976,471 Title 42 expulsions, 94% to citizens of Mexico & Central America. (Please note this visualization is based on currently available expulsion data by citizenship and is missing part of 2022).