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Voiceover: This is The Takeaway from WNYC and PRX.

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Melissa Harris-Perry: In March 2020, the CDC issued an order known as Title 42, which allowed for the immediate expulsion of migrants entering the United States. The order was issued on the grounds that migrants could be bringing COVID-19 into the country. Since then, immigration advocates have criticized the federal government for continuing to use Title 42 to justify massive expulsion of asylum seekers from the US, and many of those advocates were disheartened as the Biden administration kept the order in place.

Earlier this month, the CDC finally announced it'll be ending Title 42 on May 23rd, so does that mean the Biden administration is finally listening to what advocates have to say?

Abraham Paulos: I don't think that the Biden administration has actually heard any of our concerns around Black migrants, in particular, on the Southern border. My name is Abraham Paulos. I am the deputy director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration. What we do feel now is that Title 42 was such a clear and egregious Trump-era policy that it makes more sense for the Biden administration to wind it down.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Abraham told us that Title 42 has exposed the anti-Blackness embedded in our entire immigration system. As another example, he pointed back to the horrific incidents that were filmed last fall when border patrol agents on horseback violently pursued a group of Haitian migrants in Del Rio, Texas.

Abraham Paulos: We still have the Haitian community that is still awaiting the results of the ongoing Del Rio investigation, in which DHS and the Biden administration said that it would only take days. Since then, there's been 18,000 individuals and we're talking newborn babies, children, pregnant women who've been deported back to Haiti under Title 42 expulsions, and so I think the first thing that we want to see is something being done about that. We need actions for us to start to build a confidence and trust with this administration that we feel that we can start to negotiate and really get Black asylum seekers into a place of safety.

Melissa Harris-Perry: After the Biden administration announced plans to end Title 42, a bipartisan group of senators drafted legislation that would force the CDC to keep Title 42 in place.

Mark Kelly: My priority has been to make sure that we have a secure and orderly, and humane process at the southern border.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Democratic senator Mark Kelly of Arizona was one of the co-sponsors of the bill. Here he is speaking with FOX 10 Phoenix about his concerns over ending Title 42.

Mark Kelly: I'm really concerned that the Biden administration, right now, they do not have a plan in place to deal with this. Hospitals and border communities are, they're really spread thin, and the nonprofits are overwhelmed right now. I want to make sure that Arizona, that we do not pay a price for the failure in Washington DC. I'm going to keep holding the administration accountable for this.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Now, leaving aside the fact that Title 42 is supposed to be a public health measure rather than a domestic security matter, immigration advocates argue that it didn't make the situation at the border any easier to manage.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick: Title 42 has also made the border significantly more chaotic. My name is Aaron Reichlin-Melnick. I am Senior Policy Counsel with the American Immigration Council. People who are expelled back to Mexico are often incentivized to cross the border again, either because a Title 42 expulsion carries no consequences, or because after someone is sent back to North Mexico, they are in enormous danger from the cartels and the various other bad actors in the region. They feel that the only way that they can be safe is to cross the border again. Over the last two years, there have been more than 820,000 repeat crossings of people on their second, third, fourth, or fifth attempt to cross the border.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Aaron thinks the Biden administration's plans to ramp up processing for migrants entering the country could be effective.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick: When president Biden took office, the entire nation saw unaccompanied children stuck in border patrol cells in overcrowded conditions, but thanks to a surge of resources from the Biden administration in spring 2021, that is no longer happening. We may see an increase of people in crowded cells as numbers peak up this spring but the Biden administration has shown in the past that they're able to manage this and resolve overcrowding issues.

That said, it depends on how many people actually show up at the border. Under the current scenarios, the Biden administration is largely handling the people coming across the border and ensuring that people are not stuck in unacceptable conditions, but if numbers go up and Title 42 goes away, it remains to be seen how border officials are going to respond and whether or not they can get those resources in place in time.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Meanwhile, Abraham is taking even more of a wait-and-see approach.

Abraham Paulos: Now, we welcome this announcement, but we are not celebrating this until all expulsions have stopped and the rights to asylum is fully restored for family units, as well as single adults. On top of that, we also want to see adequate access to library services, medical care, and legal counsel. I think, again, we welcome it, but we're not celebrating until the right to asylum is restored for everyone regardless of race.

Melissa Harris-Perry: While to date, the Biden administration has rarely pushed immigration policies that center Haitian migrants, Aaron did tell us that using the system in place for quickly processing Ukrainian asylum seekers could be a blueprint for fixing the immigration system as a whole.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick: Many people want there to be a silver bullet that will somehow stop people from coming to the United States, but we are in a time of global displacement as the situation in Ukraine shows us. As we're seeing right now at the border, where more than 10,000 Ukrainians have been processed into the country to seek asylum over the last two months, we can do this. The Biden administration has the opportunity now to prove that they can rebuild the asylum system safely and humanely, but what they can't do is stop migrants from coming in the first place. They should be honest with the American public that that's not possible. As long as we view migrants as a problem that needs to be solved, we are never going to reach any sort of compromise on how to respond to the border.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Let's take a quick break, more on the end of Title 42 in a moment.

We've been speaking about the Biden administration's plans to end Title 42, the public health order that's been used since the start of the pandemic to expel asylum seekers at the border. We heard from advocates who've been pushing the White House to end the program since President Biden took office, but as we also noted, some centrist Democrats are now voicing their opposition to terminating the policy, claiming that the Biden administration does not have sufficient plans in place ahead of the May 23rd end date. To understand more about the politics of the situation I spoke with Camilo Montoya-Galvez, who is immigration reporter for CBS News.

Camilo Montoya-Galvez: I think the main issue that these centrist Democrats have on this planned termination of Title 42 on May 23rd is that they don't feel that the Department of Homeland Security is currently and adequately ready to deal with a sharp increase in migration after Title 42 is lifted.

Right now, just for your understanding, Melissa, US border officials are encountering an average of 7,000 migrants per day along the US-Mexico border, but DHS is currently planning for that number to increase to 12,000 migrants per day, or even 18,000 migrants per day, which would be unprecedented, and that would severely strain the government's capacity to process these folks because it just does not have enough facilities and border personnel to process this many migrants.

That is a real concern and so some Democrats in the Senate, including Senator Warnock from Georgia said that they do think that Title 42 should eventually be lifted, because, again, this is a temporary pandemic restriction, but they don't feel that DHS at this point is currently ready to deal with the sharp increase in the number of migrants. However, more progressive Democrats would argue, Melissa, that the US is already ending other pandemic restrictions, restrictions on movement, restrictions on mass and vaccines, and that it should also end this unprecedented border policy that, again, has partially suspended the US asylum system for two years. It's also important to note that most of the Democrats criticizing the planned termination of Title 42 are up for re-election in November.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Presumably up for re-election in somewhat more competitive races.

Camilo Montoya-Galvez: Yes, correct.

Melissa Harris-Perry: When you talk about these large numbers, I know that this has been deployed as a kind of political strategy saying that President Biden is inviting migrants or encouraging, but help us to understand what are the reasons that so many are currently migrating to the Southern border.

Camilo Montoya-Galvez: For the past several years, we've seen large numbers of migrants and asylum seekers from Central America come to the US-Mexico border. Many of these people are fleeing extreme poverty, food insecurity, the effects of climate change, like natural disasters they are having on their communities as well as persecution and violence, including by gangs, particularly in the country like El Salvador, but in recent years, we've also seen a shift because there's been a sharp increase, especially last year, in migrants coming from other parts of the Western hemisphere beyond Central America.

For example, in the past year, Melissa, we've seen a record number of Colombians, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Cubans, and Asians coming to the US-Mexico border. In Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela, obviously, you have increasingly authoritarian regimes where some of these folks are fleeing political persecution or they're fleeing the economic collapse in those countries. In Haiti, for example, we've seen natural disasters, political instability, gang violence, and the extreme poverty in that country, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.

There are a wide-ranging set of factors that are prompting people to flee, but you also have this other external dynamic where you have smuggling networks and cartels misleading migrants and telling them that the border is open under President Biden despite the fact, Melissa, that the Biden administration has continued this Trump-era policy, Title 42, to expel the majority of migrant adults. Smugglers are misrepresenting US policy from what we understand and that is giving some of these migrants and asylum seekers false hopes.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Speaking of those who might be moving migrants across borders and misrepresenting immigration policy, Texas Governor Greg Abbott sent a group of migrants on a bus from Texas to DC. What in the world is going on with this?

Camilo Montoya-Galvez: I think this is just another part of the governor's intensifying effort to rebuke the Biden administration's immigration policies. Not only has Texas filed numerous lawsuits against multiple Biden administration policies, but it has also authorized several other actions to try to counter what they see as lax border enforcement, but has already instructed state officials to, for example, arrest migrants on state trespassing charges.

He has deployed national guardsmen to the border, he has stopped licensing federal shelters for migrant children. He recently also ordered state inspections of commercial trucks, a move that has angered business leaders and some Republicans, because it has slowed down commercial traffic along the border, and that, for many people, will just worsen the food and national supply shortages that we're currently experiencing here in the US.

This latest effort is really notable because, from Abbott's perspective, he is bringing the US-Mexico border to lawmakers and the administration to DC. He says that this will force the administration to act more quickly to try to detain and deport more migrants from the border, but for advocates for asylum seekers and the White House, this is simply a political stunt, that they accuse Abbott of using these migrants as political pawns.

What's very important to know is that I spoke to the only migrant services provider that helped these migrants yesterday when they arrived in DC. From what we understand, many of these migrants who are predominantly from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Columbia, and Cuba are not going to stay in DC. This is simply a layover for them to go to other destinations, such as Florida in the US. They had to take this 30-hour trip financed by Texas taxpayers just to have a layover in Washington DC, so they can go to other destinations in the US.

Melissa Harris-Perry: I just want to take one more beat on this, because it does seem that this kind of action which is so highly politicized by the Governor of Texas, likely indicates that he's probably planning or at least beginning to consider a presidential run. I'm wondering about whether or not immigration is in fact likely to be a meaningful issue both in the midterms and then even as we begin to go into the next presidential election?

Camilo Montoya-Galvez: I think Republicans certainly think that immigration and border policy is a winning political issue for them and you've seen that reflected in the actions not just by Texas governor Greg Abbott, but, for example, Governor DeSantis in Florida who has also taken similar approaches and other governors across the country, as well as Republicans in Congress who have proposed numerous bills to reverse many Biden administration policies.

In many ways, you've also seen Democrats recognize that this is an issue that they don't feel will galvanize their voters and that could actually hurt them politically because many of them simply don't talk about this issue. For example, President Biden, when he hosts press conferences is either rarely asked about this issue or just does not mention it broadly enough.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Camilo Montoya-Galvez is an immigration reporter for CBS News. Camilo, again, thank you so much for joining us.

Camilo Montoya-Galvez: Thanks so much, Melissa.

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