Trump ‘searching for disease to justify closing US-Mexico border’ and expel migrants on health grounds

Donald Trump is planning to seal off the US-Mexican border by invoking public health emergency powers, a report has claimed.

The President-elect’s advisers have spent months searching for diseases that would allow them to justify closing the border using Title 42, which permits the expulsion of migrants on public health grounds without asylum claims.

Trump’s allies continue to examine tuberculosis and other respiratory diseases as potential justification for the border closure, the New York Times has reported.

Trump previously employed Title 42 powers in March 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Advisers have also reached out to Border Patrol allies to identify illnesses detected among migrants.

The team is considering arguing that migrants may carry unfamiliar diseases due to their diverse countries of origin.Stephen Miller, who will return as Trump’s deputy chief of staff, had previously pushed for Title 42 powers before the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 2019, Miller attempted to use a mumps outbreak in immigration detention facilities to seal the border but was unsuccessful.

Speaking to The New York Times in 2023, Miller said a future Trump administration would invoke Title 42 citing “severe strains of the flu, tuberculosis, scabies, other respiratory illnesses”.

He added it could be justified by “mass migration being a public health threat and conveying a variety of communicable diseases”.

Title 42, part of the Public Service Act of 1944, allows authorities to block US entry to prevent a “serious danger” from contagious diseases in other countries.

President Joe Biden overruled his officials to continue to enforce the measures until May 2023 as White House aides were reportedly concerned that ending the practice would trigger a surge in immigration.

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Critics argue that turning back millions of migrants under Title 42 proved ineffective, as it encouraged illegal border crossings to evade patrol.

Freedom of Information data obtained by The Telegraph revealed a significant increase in monthly “gotaways” during Trump’s previous implementation of the policy.

The number rose from 13,604 in March 2020 to 37,479 within a year.