Biden admin weighs revival of policy to detain migrant families amid southern border crisis: reports

The Biden administration is reportedly considering the revival of a policy that would detain migrant families who cross the southern border illegally amid the expected expiration of Title 42.

The deliberation by the White House, first reported by the New York Times, comes after President Biden put an end to several policies that were used by former President Trump’s administration to crack down on the heavy flow of illegal migrants into America.

The White House move could also include other measures to tamp down on the number of illegal migrants in the country, according to Reuters, which reported that the Biden administration is also considering reviving arrests of migrant families in the U.S. who have been ordered deported.

“It’s all on the table,” one U.S. official told Reuters of the purported plan.

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President Biden speaks with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers as he visits the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, on Jan. 8, 2023. (JIM WATSON/AFP)

The Biden administration has largely ended the detention of migrant families, instead releasing them temporarily into the U.S. interior and tracking them with technologies like ankle bracelets and cellphones.

The reports of the Biden administration scrambling to maintain control of certain immigration problems throughout the country comes two months before the expiration of Title 42, an order invoked by both the Biden and Trump administrations to expel a majority of migrants at the southern border due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Citing five current and former administration officials with knowledge of the administration’s discussions, the Times reported that “senior White House and homeland security immigration advisers have held several meetings over the past few days to discuss their options” ahead of Title 42’s end on May 11.

Last month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Justice announced a proposed rule which makes migrants automatically presumed to be ineligible for asylum if they have crossed into the U.S. illegally and have failed to claim asylum in a country through which they have already traveled.

Immigrants wait for soup donated by the Yuma County Abolition group after crossing the border from Mexico on May 23, 2022, in San Luis, Arizona. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

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Unaccompanied children would be exempt, and there would be other factors that could rebut the presumption, including an acute medical emergency, being a trafficking victim or facing an “extreme and imminent” threat to life or safety. However, all others would be presumed to be ineligible and therefore removable.

In a statement to the Times, Luis Miranda, a spokesperson for DHS, insisted that no decisions had been finalized ahead of the end of Title 42.

”The administration will continue to prioritize safe, orderly and humane processing of migrants,” Miranda said.

The border saw record levels of migrant encounters in FY21 and FY 22. There were 251,000 migrant encounters in December and over 156,000 in January. While those numbers mark historic highs for each month, the administration has tied the drop between the months to the rollout of border measures unveiled in January.

Venezuelan migrants communicate with their families and friends at the camp area in front of the U.S. Border Patrol operations post across the Rio Bravo in the evening hours in Mexico on Nov. 14, 2022. (Carlos Ernesto Escalona/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

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Those policies include an expansion of Title 42 to Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, Cubans and Haitians, combined with a humanitarian parole program that allows up to 30,000 of those nationalities to be flown into the U.S. each month if they meet certain conditions. Republican-led states have sought to block the program in the courts, calling it an illegal misuse of parole authority. The administration has also Congress to pass a sweeping immigration reform bill that would include, among other things, a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants.

The White House and Homeland Security Department did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital about the reported policy revival consideration.

Fox News’ Adam Shaw contributed to this article.