Rubio Grills Fauci on American Citizens Being Barred for Testing Positive, Illegalls Allowed in Regardless: ‘I Don’t Have the Answer’

May 18, 2022 Updated 9:06 A.M. ET

WASHINGTON (FLV) –  U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, R-Florida, questioned Dr. Anthony Fauci on the Biden Administration’s COVID policies allowing illegal immigrants to enter the country without a negative COVID test while citizens need to provide a test result.

“How do we tell American citizens if you test positive, even if it’s a dead virus that’s been in your system for ten days, you can test positive for days even if you’re no longer infectious, you can’t enter your own country but if you arrive illegally, whether you test positive or not. If you say the magic words for asylum you get to stay in the country,” Rubio. 

Rubio made the comments during a Senate Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee hearing Tuesday. The Senator questioned why Americans need to provide a negative test when the Biden Administration plans to lift Title 42 for illegal immigrants. 

The Title 42 Order, issued during the COVID-19 pandemic, gives border agents the ability to expel migrants attempting to enter the U.S. who traveled from a country where a communicable disease is present. 

RUBIO: “Has the time come for us to lift this, in your view? Having been so integral in our COVID response, are we at a point now where American citizens should be allowed to return to their country without testing negative?”

FAUCI: “Thank you for the question. It’s an important question. I don’t have the answer to that. I mean, we work with our CDC colleagues to continue to examine the feasibility of that and the desirability of that. I think the idea of having an immigration issue mixed with a public health issue for the general population — I think those probably should be separated.”

RUBIO: “Except they’re interrelated because they both involve groups of people entering the United States. One group is citizens of the country entering legally. The other group, frankly, are people that are not entering legally. The group that’s not entering legally, even if they test positive, if they’re even tested, get to stay. The American citizen can’t re-enter their own country until they produce a negative test.”

The Biden Administration had planned to lift the Title 42 Order May 23rd. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had said the order was no longer necessary.  

However, a federal judge in Louisiana granted a temporary restraining order in April to block the administration from ending the order. The lawsuit originally filed by Missouri, Louisiana, and Arizona argued that rescinding Title 42 would prompt mass migration at the U.S. border and overwhelm federal authorities. Florida and other suits joined the other Attorneys General in the suit.