El Paso Standard

Congressman Tony Gonzales (R-TX) is criticizing how the Biden administration is handling the crisis at the nation's southern border after a federal judge ruled Title 42 can't be used to expel immigrants.

Gonzales took to Twitter to vocalize his frustrations with the legal move.

"Cancelling Title 42 without putting up any guardrails to deter illegal immigration once again highlights this administration’s indifference to how severely our border communities continue to suffer from the border crisis," Gonzales wrote in a Nov. 16 tweet.

A federal judge has issued an order blocking federal authorities from using Title 42, FOX News reported. Title 42 was implemented at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic while former President Donald Trump was in office to quickly expel immigrants who had crossed the border on the basis of the public health emergency.

According data from Customs and Border Protection, the Trump administration expelled more than 185,000 migrants in 2020 under Title 42. Since then, 937,000 migrants were expelled in 2021 and 983,000 migrants have been expelled so far in 2022. FOX News reported the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced in April that Title 42 would expire the following month, however, a federal judge in Louisiana blocked the efforts to end it due to a lawsuit by two dozen Republican-led states.

Almost 2.4 million migrant encounters took place during the 2022 fiscal year. According to FOX News, Republicans worry that ending Title 42 could make an already unmanageable border crisis much worse. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted it would "further signal to cartels, human smugglers and illegal immigrants that the border is wide open."