Booker, Menendez, Schumer, and Padilla Joint Statement on Biden Administration’s Decision to Maintain Title 42 in Effect

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.), alongside Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), issued the following joint statement in response to the Biden Administration’s decision to maintain Title 42 in effect:

“We are deeply disappointed in the Biden Administration’s decision to maintain Title 42. While we recognize that the Administration made the right choice to prevent unaccompanied children from being expelled, it is wrong that they made the decision to continue sending families with minor children back to persecution and torture. With vaccines and testing widely available, there is no public health benefit to sending asylum seekers back to harm.

“As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention relaxes it domestic COVID-19 protocols, it is perplexing that the agency continues to recommend the extended use of this draconian policy at the border, contradicting the overwhelming signs of America’s pandemic recovery under President Biden’s leadership. As we have clearly reminded President Biden, we have a moral imperative to live by our values.

“It is time for the Biden Administration to reinstate humanitarian protections at our borders, to build a functional asylum system that is equipped to manage our global migration challenge, and to stop breathing new life into this inhumane Trump policy.”