Trump Decries End of Title 42, Vows Illegal Immigrant ‘Invasion Will Not Stand’

President Donald Trump (C) and Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen (R) during a roundtable on immigration and border security at the Border Patrol Calexico Station in Calexico, Calif., on April 5, 2019. Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump said that, by allowing his public-health immigration policy to expire, President Joe Biden is opening the floodgates to illegal immigration.

“At this very moment, illegal aliens are lined up by the tens of thousands, ready to break into our country,” Trump said in a statement released May 11, hours before Title 42 was set to sunset.

Trump implemented Title 42 in March 2020 to rapidly expel illegal immigrants under a public health rule, in connection with the coronavirus pandemic.

“With today’s termination of the final remnants of Title 42, Joe Biden has officially abolished what remained of America’s borders and turned the United States into a dumping ground for illegal aliens from all over the world,” Trump said.

As the midnight expiration of Title 42 approached, TV footage showed waves of immigrants poised to cross the U.S.-Mexico border; NTD News reported many U.S. cities were bracing for the influx.

However, the Biden administration took steps to prepare for the surge and said that it added a new rule (pdf) that would render many illegal immigrants ineligible for asylum. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says Biden has been trying to expand pathways for legal immigration.

The administration was beefing up the border with 1,400 DHS personnel, 1,000 processing coordinators, and 1,500 troops.

In a videotaped statement, Trump said the illegal immigrants know that “even if they are caught, Joe Biden will order them immediately released into American communities, and many of these people are very dangerous.”

Staggering Statistics

Trump said that, because of Biden, “our border is gone, our sovereignty is gone, our national security is gone.”

Trump’s campaign asserts that the U.S. Border Patrol has reported three times as many illegal border crossings under Joe Biden when compared to those during Trump’s tenure.

“The Biden administration continues to break records for historic illegal border crossings, with over 6.3 million illegal crossings since taking office, more than the populations of Los Angeles and Houston combined,” the statement said.

Trump also accused Biden of allowing “record amounts of deadly fentanyl” to accompany illegal immigrants.

“Last year alone, agents seized enough fentanyl to kill 379 million people—more than the entire population of the United States,” the statement said.

Trump’s Plans

“This invasion will not stand,” Trump declared in his video.

He pledged to follow the lead of former President Dwight Eisenhower and “use all necessary federal, state, local, and military resources to begin the largest domestic deportation effort in American history.” Vetted by Eisenhower, a campaign by U.S. immigration law enforcement resulted in the mass deportation of Mexican nationals in the summer of 1954.

In addition, Trump says he is committed to “declare war” on drug cartels.

He would “deploy all necessary military assets, including the U.S. Navy, to impose a full naval embargo on the cartels,” the statement said.

Trump promised to direct the Department of Defense to engage special forces, cyber warfare, “and other overt and covert actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure, and operations,” according to the statement.

He says he is committed to work with Congress on legislation that would impose the death penalty for convicted drug smugglers and human traffickers.

Trump’s video concluded by stating: “Our country is being destroyed by very, very stupid people. These are stupid people. We have to get them out. We have to take back the White House.”

Jana J. Pruet contributed to this story.