Trump Team Reportedly Hunting for a Disease to Justify Border Closure
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
President-elect Donald Trump’s team is reportedly searching for a disease to declare a public health emergency as a pretext to seal the U.S. border, The New York Times reported Thursday. The strategy centers on invoking Section 265 of Title 42, a provision that allows the suspension of border entries and the expulsion of migrants during a declared communicable disease emergency.
This authority, which became a cornerstone of Trump’s border policy during the COVID-19 pandemic, was lifted by the Biden administration in 2023. “As he prepares to enter office again, Mr. Trump has no such public health disaster to point to,” wrote reporters Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Hamed Aleaziz.
“Still, his advisers have spent recent months trying to find the right disease to build their case, according to four people familiar with the discussions. They have looked at tuberculosis and other respiratory diseases as options and have asked allies inside the Border Patrol for examples of illnesses that are being detected among migrants.”
The move revives a racially charged historical narrative, with the report noting the Trump administration’s strategy “echoes a racist notion with a long history in the United States that minorities transmit infections.”
While it remains unclear whether such emergency measures effectively deter illegal immigration, data from the libertarian Cato Institute suggests that the rate of so-called “getaways”—undocumented migrants who evade detection—declined after the policy was rescinded in 2023.
The report arrives as Trump prepares to appoint controversial figures to key public health positions. Chief among them is vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., tapped to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy has been a vocal critic of vaccines, spreading unfounded claims about their safety and even comparing vaccine mandates to Nazi deportations of Jews.
The policy discussions reflect Trump’s broader efforts to reimplement hardline immigration measures from his first term, now with a renewed emphasis on leveraging public health emergencies. However, critics argue this approach is politically motivated and lacks scientific justification, further polarizing an already divisive issue.
As Trump’s team continues to search for a viable disease to bolster their case, the proposal is likely to face significant scrutiny from both public health experts and immigration advocates alike.
