Title 42: Migration caught between politics and the border

It was originally an instrument conceived for other times, for other threats. A legal loophole that allowed borders to be closed not out of fear of foreigners, but out of fear of disease. Title 42 was born as a health decree, but it has ended up becoming a tool of exclusion, a mechanism whose ultimate function is not to prevent the entry of an epidemic, but of men and women fleeing a more silent and persistent condemnation: poverty.

Invoked during the pandemic as a justification to prevent the spread of COVID-19, Title 42 allowed the summary expulsion of more than 2.3 million people, denying them the possibility of requesting asylum, nullifying the right of every human being to flee violence, hunger, and death. Now, its reinstatement is justified with a new pretext: tuberculosis. But the disease that is invoked as a threat does not seem to justify the measure. The United States records only 2.5 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the lowest rates in the world. What, then, is the real justification?

It could be argued that no immigration policy can be sustained on a lie without consequences. The problem, however, is that the consequences always fall on the same people.

The fundamental error of containment policies lies not only in their crudeness, but in their uselessness. Title 42 has not stopped the flow of migrants, nor will it. Poverty, violence and climate change do not recognize borders, and those who flee will not stop fleeing because a decree dictates it.

Migration routes are changing, fragmenting, and becoming more cruel. What was once a defined and predictable route is becoming a geography of threats. The Irapuato-Torreón stretch, which for years was the main corridor for those crossing Mexico heading north, has become a labyrinth of checkpoints, a territory sealed off by the National Guard. With the closure of this route, migration has shifted to more inhospitable, more expensive, and more violent routes. The Gulf route, which had remained almost empty, has been reactivated, and with it have returned kidnappings, disappearances, and the exploitation of those who have already lost almost everything.

The strategy is the same as always: create obstacles until crossing becomes such a dangerous feat that deterrence seems natural. But it is not. The only real consequence is that those who previously advanced in caravans, visible and protected by the solidarity of some humanitarian groups, now do so in the shadows, in absolute secrecy. And there, in the darkness, wait those who have always known how to take advantage of fear and desperation: the traffickers, the cartels, the predators of misfortune.

For Mexico, the reinstatement of Title 42 represents a dilemma with no real alternative. The border becomes a bottleneck where the migratory flow does not decrease, but rather stagnates, and cities become improvised shelters for a humanitarian crisis that no one wants to assume.

Tapachula is overwhelmed. Mexico City, too. Asylum systems take months to process applications that keep piling up, and migrants are trapped in legal limbo, stranded in a country that is not their own and that, at best, ignores them. At worst, criminalizes them.

Added to this burden is another, equally calculated but disguised as economic policy. Washington has imposed tariffs on Mexican steel and aluminum, a pressure that adds to the list of diplomatic blackmail used in the past. History repeats itself: when Donald Trump's government threatened similar sanctions in 2019, Mexico gave in and agreed to implement the Migrant Protection Program (MPP), becoming the wall that Trump could not build.

The question is whether the response will be the same now. Will the role of border guard once again be traded in exchange for trade stability? How many more agreements will Mexico have to sign to keep the border functioning as a filter serving another country?

Title 42 is not an immigration policy, it is a policy of omission. It operates on the principle that if the crisis remains at a distance, it is not the problem of whoever causes it. But the effects are tangible, and the geopolitical repercussions of its reinstatement go beyond the immediate electoral calculation.

🔹 Mexico's northern border will become a zone of human exclusion, with more makeshift camps, more forced evictions, more confrontations with authorities who neither want nor can manage the crisis.

🔹 Organized crime will become even stronger, because every obstacle imposed by a border translates into higher rates for those who profit from human trafficking.

🔹 Diplomatic tensions will increase, because neither Mexico nor international organizations will be able to ignore systematic violations of the right to asylum.

None of this seems to worry those who design immigration policy in Washington too much. For them, every crisis can be delegated, every tragedy can be outsourced, every life lost along the way is, at bottom, just another statistic on the containment scoreboard.

The border is a symptom, not a solution

Title 42 will not stop migration, just as walls, patrols, or exclusion laws have not done before. Because migration is not a crime, nor a whim, nor an economic calculation. It is a necessity, a force that is not measured in numbers but in bodies that continue to advance, because not doing so is dying in a country that has expelled them before they crossed their first border.

It can be argued that every country has the right to protect its borders, but no one has the right to deny the existence of another human being. No one can pretend that closing a door is the same as solving a problem.

Migration policies are designed with decrees and signed in black ink on distant desks, but they are executed in the deserts, on the rivers, in the train cars where those who have already lost almost everything travel. And there, in that no man's land, the only law that remains in force is the oldest of all: when a person flees from desperation, no wall will stop them.

Perhaps those who legislate from a distance can afford to forget this. Those who walk north cannot.