DES MOINES, Iowa — Just before midnight Thursday, Title 42 will expire, meaning thousands of new migrants may immediately seek asylum in the United States.
Title 42 allowed federal authorities to expel migrants without giving them the chance to apply for asylum: this was invoked in 2020 in order to slow the spread of COVID-19.
With that coming to an end, local advocates say that Iowa could still feel the impact of the change.
The American Immigration Council says there are currently more than 1.3 million pending asylum cases. The average case takes over four years to get through the immigration court system. Those numbers may grow even larger, with more migrants expected to seek asylum after Title 42 ends.
"What we need are more judges, we need more processing officials to be down there to help these people who are seeking refuge," said Joe Enriquez Henry, Political Director of LULAC Iowa.
Enriquez Henry estimated that the Title 42 expiration could bring between 300 to 500 new migrants to Iowa in the coming months. And they may not be coming from where you'd expect.
"It's not really Mexico. It's the Northern Triangle, Central American countries, where people are fleeing violence. These are the people who are trying to get here to the U.S.," Enriquez Henry said.
Critics of the decision say that allowing Title 42 to expire will lead to chaos at the border and that the country doesn't have the resources to take on all those additional people.
"We're not going to be able to handle everything, and we're going to get double the number of people crossing the Rio Grande every day," said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
Still, immigration advocates are celebrating the move, arguing that welcoming some new Iowans will benefit the state in the long run.
"We should be doing our part. They would be very useful here in Iowa. We need more people to come here. We've been a state of only about three million people. Having an extra several hundred is not going to hurt us. We definitely could use the help," Enriquez Henry said.
The American Immigration Council says that just over 176,000 immigrants make their home in Iowa. Approximately 21% of them are from Mexico.
The VERIFY team contributed to this report