Republicans in Congress have repeatedly sought to legislatively prevent President Joe Biden’s administration from prematurely ending the pandemic-related Title 42 public health order that allows for the immediate expulsion of migrants seeking entry at the nation’s borders.

Those attempts to impose conditions on plans to end Title 42 have been repeatedly blocked by House Democrats, though, including for the fifth time in the span of one year on Wednesday, Breitbart reported.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Title 42, initially imposed by former President Donald Trump in March 2020, had been scheduled to end on May 23 by the Biden administration but currently still remains in effect due to a temporary court injunction.

The PAUSE Act

In January 2021, cognizant of President Biden’s stated intentions to eventually end Title 42, Rep. Yvette Herrell (R-NM) introduced legislation known as the Protecting Americans from Unnecessary Spread upon Entry (PAUSE) Act of 2021 that would add certain conditions to any administrative attempts to end Title 42.

Those conditions that must be met before Title 42 being ended included an end to all federal and state-level COVID-19-related lockdowns, stay-at-home orders, curfews, and mandates, as well as all declared federal and public health emergency orders, along with a requirement that the CDC’s traveler health risk designations for Canada and Mexico be reduced to Level 1.

“In New Mexico and across the U.S., draconian lockdowns have been imposed in the name of ‘slowing the spread’ of COVID-19,” Herrell said at the time the bill was first introduced. “Until the lockdowns and emergency declarations have ended, border health protections must remain in place to prevent the introduction of new cases and new strains of the virus at our borders.”

That proposed bill has since been brought to the House floor five times in the span of one year, according to Breitbart, but has been blocked from further consideration each time by the House Democratic majority.

That includes once in June and again in July of 2021, twice in April of 2022, and once more on Wednesday, when 215 House Democrats again blocked the PAUSE Act from consideration and debate.

Biden created a no-win “political mess” for himself with Title 42 plans

As noted, President Biden’s administration had previously announced its intention to formally end Title 42 on May 23 but was ultimately blocked from doing so by a federal district court judge just days prior to that effective end date, according to Politico.

The judge had ruled in response to a lawsuit filed by 24 states in opposition to the proposed end of the pandemic-related public health policy on the border and declared that the rule must remain in place until the issue was fully resolved by the courts.

To be sure, open borders advocates were enraged by the ruling and the Biden White House dutifully put out carefully worded statements that signaled disapproval of the judge’s order, but according to Politico, the Biden White House was actually secretly relieved by the court-ordered delay to what had become viewed as a controversial no-win “political mess” for the administration.

On the one hand, lifting Title 42 would please the activist base of the Democratic Party and be in line with Biden’s lax enforcement policies on the border, but it would also undoubtedly result in a massive surge of illegal migrant entry above and beyond the already record-high number of illegal entrants and cause even more political headaches for Biden with Republicans and a substantial swathe of the American people who want the border to be enforced in accordance with existing laws.