Citing the threat of the outbreak of the Ebola virus, the Trump administration invoked an emergency public health rule on Monday to seal American borders to those who have recently been in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda or South Sudan.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday invoked the public health law, known as Title 42, to block entry into the United States by those who had been in the three African nations in the last 21 days. The restriction does not apply to American citizens or U.S. service members.
The use of the public health law comes after the World Health Organization declared that the Ebola outbreak in Congo and Uganda amounted to a global health emergency.
“This order is necessary to protect the health of the United States from the serious risk posed by the introduction of Ebola disease into the United States,” said the order published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The use of Title 42 would mark the return of a public health authority that Mr. Trump in his first term — and subsequently President Joseph R. Biden Jr. — used as a means to cut off migration to the United States after the coronavirus began spreading in the country.
The order is in effect for 30 days. The administration will then evaluate whether to extend the order.
The administration has already blocked travelers from Congo and South Sudan, part of sweeping bans restricting visas from many African and Muslim-majority countries. The public health order effectively adds another layer of restrictions to the African nations.
As of Sunday, the C.D.C. said there were reports of more than 330 suspected cases, including nearly 90 deaths in Congo. Two cases have been confirmed in Uganda. The administration is closing travel from South Sudan, which neighbors Congo and Uganda, because of its proximity to the outbreak, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Title 42, which is part of the Public Service Act of 1944, grants power to health authorities to block people from entering the United States when it is necessary to avert a “serious danger” posed by the presence of a communicable disease in foreign countries.
The administration is moving to limit travel after making changes to the global health system that experts have said could complicate the response to the ebola outbreak.
The Trump administration withdrew from the W.H.O. in January, and last year shuttered the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has played a major role in containing previous outbreaks.
But the use of the health authority to turn away migrants has often prompted scrutiny from the courts and public health officials. Stephen Miller, the architect of Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda, has for years searched for diseases that could justify the use of Title 42, even before the coronavirus pandemic. C.D.C. officials questioned the effectiveness of the rule to seal the border to migrants during the Trump and Biden administrations.
During the Biden era, Democrats and Republicans largely dropped the guise of public health concern and instead used the law as a negotiating chip to try to secure a deal on border security and immigration.
During the presidential transition, Mr. Trump’s advisers asked the Border Patrol for examples of illnesses detected among migrants as they considered whether to impose the rule, even without any obvious outbreak of a disease. Officials held back as they used other policies to close the border to immigration.
Andrea Flores, a former immigration policy adviser with the Obama and Biden administrations, said the Trump administration’s decision to invoke Title 42 during the latest Ebola outbreak “makes sense based on what Title 42 was designed to do, which is act as a public health restriction, not as a general immigration restriction.”
“Both parties have politicized its usage but it is still needed in times where there is the risk of cross-border pandemic spread,” she said.
But she questioned whether the administration’s concern over the disease outbreak in central African region would mean that it would also cease sending deportees from other nations to those countries.
The Trump administration has sent thousands of migrants from the United States to far-flung nations other than their own, including the Democratic Republic of Congo. The administration in recent weeks has also discussed sending Afghan refugees who are seeking entry to the United States after assisting the American war effort in their country to Congo.
The White House declined to answer questions about how the C.D.C. order acknowledging the outbreak in the region would affect that deportation policy.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
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