Karl Rove Questions White House Plan to End Migrant Expulsion: ‘Is the Health Crisis Gone?’

Karl Rove questioned on Monday whether the Biden administration’s potential move to stop turning away illegal migrants at the border meant the pandemic-induced “health crisis” had ended.

“This is a terrible problem for our country,” Rove said in a Fox News segment with Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino. “I’m amazed the Biden administration is talking about getting rid of the Trump administration rule that said, for public health reasons, we’ll immediately turn back into Mexico people that we get trying to cross the border. I don’t understand why we’re trying to do that, why we’re trying to reverse this. Is the health crisis gone?”

Rove was referring to Title 42, a provision of the Public Health Safety Act that former President Donald Trump invoked in March 2020, at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. The move allowed U.S. officials to turn away migrants who attempted to cross the border unlawfully, rather than detaining them. The Biden administration is considering whether to end the policy as early as July 31.

Citing low vaccination rates among Central American nations, Rove suggested that ending the policy could pose health problems for Americans. “Forty-six percent of all Americans are vaccinated,” Rove noted. “In Mexico, it’s 16 percent. … Guatemala, less than 1 percent are vaccinated; Honduras, almost half a percent; same in El Salvador. Nicaragua doesn’t even report how many people are vaccinated, it’s so little.

“That means we have people who are more likely to have covid, who are coming into the United States who have a much higher prospect of having covid,” he added. “And we’re going to release them in a vulnerable part of our country where the health systems are already strained and can be easily overwhelmed by people who are sick and need to be taken care of.”

Hemmer responded that the “contradiction” from the administration was “stunning.”

Watch above via Fox News.