Nearly 60% of Americans do not support the Biden administration's decision to repeal the Title 42 order, which allows migrants to be turned away at the United States-Mexico border and stopped from seeking asylum for public health reasons, according to a poll released Thursday.
For the CNN/SSRS poll, tracking the opinions of 1,007 respondents, 57% don't believe it's the right time to lift Title 42, which first launched during the Trump administration in 2020, compared to 43% favoring an end to Title 42.
Timing was apparently a key factor in the poll.
Of the 57% respondents saying "No" to a rescinding of Title 42, 48% want President Joe Biden and his advisers to first craft a workable alternative to Title 42, whereas 52% prefer to have Title 42 intact indefinitely.
In other poll results:
- 59% of those polled admitted they have not been regularly following Title 42-related news, compared to the 41% who monitor Title 42 happenings closely.
- Nearly 75% of respondents said they were either "not too confident" or "not confident at all" about the Biden administration's ability to manage the humanitarian crisis at the southern border.
At a hearing last week, Republicans grilled Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about the chaos at the border, along with the White House's decision to drop Title 42 on May 23.
Shortly thereafter, Mayorkas reportedly told Fox News, "You shouldn't be worried about [Title 42]. ... We've got a handle on it."
At the Capitol hearing, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, came equipped with photos when speaking directly to Mayorkas, claiming the DHS secretary had been "ignoring the actual truth" of the border situation.
"Mr. Secretary, do you know what this is? This is a mobile morgue, a body trailer needed by counties in south Texas overwhelmed by dead migrants. That particular trailer is filled with these bodies. Twenty-seven bodies that were stored in this mobile morgue in south Texas with dead bodies of migrants.
"Dead bodies like this one found on a ranch just three weeks ago in south Texas, a dead migrant. Somehow that's compassion."
Roy added: "How about the dead bodies found by migrants? Compassion? How about the ranchers who had to walk out of their door and this is what they faced: Gentlemen with rocks threatening a rancher in south Texas, only able to be saved when they are able to bring their dogs out to scare the people away in order to save themselves."