In response to the Trump administration invoking Title 42 authorities to block access to the U.S. asylum system following the Ebola outbreak, the following quote is attributable to Thomas McHale, SM, public health director at Physicians for Human Rights (PHR):
“The Trump administration’s revival of Title 42 in response to the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda is not a public health measure. It is the weaponization of a public health emergency to justify shutting the door on people seeking asylum at the U.S. border. The World Health Organization (WHO) does not recommend blanket travel bans to stop Ebola transmission, which spreads through direct contact with , or items contaminated by, bodily fluids.
“Title 42 is an obscure and dated provision of U.S. public health law that allows the federal government to suspend the entry of people into the country on public health grounds. In March 2020 it was invoked for the first time since the 1940’s under the guise of COVID-19 public health authority. Title 42 was used to expel millions of people at the U.S.-Mexico border, including people seeking asylum with credible fears of persecution. PHR documented how the order operated as immigration enforcement dressed up as public health, contradicted the CDC’s own scientists’ analysis, and caused serious harm to people seeking asylum forcibly returned to danger.
“Public health responses to Ebola should be guided by science and human rights, not politics or xenophobia. Discriminatory border measures like Title 42 distract from the real strategies that work to confront global health crises like Ebola: supporting health care workers, strengthening disease surveillance, ensuring humanitarian access, and containing outbreaks at their source.
“The Trump administration slamming the door shut on people seeking asylum will not stop Ebola. It will set a dangerous precedent that any infectious disease anywhere in the world can be invoked to suspend the human right to seek asylum.”
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a New York-based advocacy organization that uses science and medicine to prevent mass atrocities and severe human rights violations. Learn more here.