Trump Considers Labeling Migrants a Measles, Tuberculosis Risk - WSJ

Feb. 5, 2025

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration is considering a move to repel asylum seekers at the southern border on the basis that they might bring measles or tuberculosis infections with them into the U.S., current and former officials said.

President Trump’s advisers have been looking for evidence of disease threats that would merit reviving a policy they used during the pandemic in his first term to push back migrants who sought asylum at the border, the current and former officials said. The Trump administration sees the emergency health law, known as Title 42, as overriding laws that guarantee migrants a right to request humanitarian protection in the U.S.

White House officials have identified TB and measles as disease threats most likely to warrant invoking Title 42. The Health and Human Services department is sending Public Health Service officers to the border, officials involved in the effort said.

Kansas is experiencing a TB outbreak, and measles cases have been reported recently in states including Texas. It isn’t known whether those cases have any connection to the southern border, where crossings have plummeted in the past year. The general risk from both diseases remains low, public-health officials said.

Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office last month banning migrants from requesting asylum because he said the southern border is under invasion. People close to Trump have said the administration is looking for overlapping immigration policies in case courts strike some down. Earlier this week, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups sued to halt Trump’s executive order.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee for health secretary, would need to approve the health-emergency measure for measles or TB if he is confirmed by the Senate. Kennedy has questioned whether vaccines for measles are safe and whether the threat of measles is exaggerated. He told senators during his confirmation hearings last week that he supports the measles vaccine.

Trump adviser Stephen Miller first suggested using Title 42 to essentially halt asylum at the border in 2018 when flu cases rose in Border Patrol detention facilities. It was a novel strategy for circumventing asylum’s broad protections. White House lawyers resisted the plan, but the administration enacted it two years later during the pandemic. Officials said then that holding migrants in crowded detention facilities long enough to consider their legal claims risked exacerbating the spread of Covid-19.

The Biden administration maintained the policy for several years, but it became less effective as Mexico took back fewer migrants a day. The policy was also litigated in court. Though a federal appeals court left the policy in place while the case was being decided, it ruled the policy didn’t override protections against sending back migrants at risk of persecution or torture. Immigration law states that people are allowed to ask for humanitarian protection in the U.S. no matter how they entered.

Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection that can spread through prolonged contact with someone who has active tuberculosis. Patients with latent tuberculosis can receive therapy that prevents their case from becoming active. People with active tuberculosis can get treatment that prevents the disease from worsening, and help them be less contagious.

Measles, a viral disease that spreads rapidly, can be prevented with a vaccine. Two measles cases were reported in Houston last month. Another in an unvaccinated child was reported last month in Gaines County, Texas, a rural area bordering New Mexico. There are six cases in that county, a public-health official said. The CDC has provided guidance and offered resources to the state, a spokeswoman for the Texas health department said.

Dr. Marty Cetron, a former CDC director of global migration and quarantine, said public-health officials had tools such as TB tests and measles vaccines to address the diseases without the border measure.

“This is sort of hijacking a public health concern to justify an immigration policy rather than taking the appropriate public-health steps to control both of those diseases,” Cetron said.