BREWSTER COUNTY, Texas — It is a policy that has gained a lot more recognition in the past couple of years.
Title 42 will be expiring Thursday. It was part of a law that allowed migration to be curbed in the name of public health.
Naturally, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Title 42 was used to send migrants away from the southern border, after the CDC ordered migration to be limited to stop the spread of COVID-19.
"Title 42 was implemented to prevent countries that had some sort of communicable disease from having people come into our country," said Brewster County Sheriff Ronny Dodson.
With COVID-19 restrictions being lifted worldwide, Title 42 is set to expire alongside them.
An influx of migrants is now expected to hit the southern border. Each migrant is also ready be thoroughly processed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to determine their legal status.
However, Dodson was concerned that, with more migrants being interviewed and processed by Border Patrol agents, it would take agents away from the front lines.
"You know, they're going to have a lot of paperwork, and it's going to take a lot of administrative people," said Dodson. "When you get that many people coming on, it's gonna take a lot of men and women that are working, the Border Patrol and the ICE agents, off the front lines and doing paperwork."
While Brewer County is no stranger to migrants, there is only so much Dodson and his staff can do about migrants, even when Title 42 was in place.
"It’s not gonna change what we’re doing on the state level," said Dodson. "We can only do what we can do, catching the smugglers. Because it’s like I said, we have no jurisdiction over immigrants."
New policies and procedures may help increase the amount of legal migrants coming into the country, but there will still be criminals and smugglers looking to exploit shortcuts and loopholes.
“There’s always going to be human smuggling," said Dodson. "Wherever there’s money that can be made, they’re going to make it. That’s not going to stop, that part, because you’re going to have criminal aliens that are going to be trying to come across, because they’re not going to come across a point of entry.”