After two dozen Republican-controlled states filed a lawsuit over the revocation of Title 42, Louisiana judge Robert Summerhays issued a preliminary injunction on the Biden administration’s directive to end the order on May 23.
“Today’s ruling is a significant win as Title 42 is one of the few policies that is actually working,” said Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, Fox News reports. “I’m grateful to the court for upholding the rule of law and helping maintain some level of sanity as we continue to battle the Biden-made border crisis.”
As reported by The Dallas Express, the Biden administration announced its plans to lift Title 42 in April after the CDC claimed that there was no longer a COVID-19 risk associated with the processing of migrants.
“After considering current public health conditions and an increased availability of tools to fight COVID-19 … the CDC Director has determined that an Order suspending the right to introduce migrants into the United States is no longer necessary,” announced the CDC.
The plaintiffs in the case claimed that suspending Title 42 was highly irresponsible because it would fuel another unprecedented wave of unlawful migrants and violate the Administrative Procedures Act.
Within the complaint, anonymous Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials warned that ending Title 42 would result in what one DHS agent described as a “surge on top of a surge.” It also mentioned the massive financial burden that the order’s repeal could impose on states.
“This suit challenges an imminent, man-made, self-inflicted calamity: the abrupt elimination of the only safety valve preventing this administration’s disastrous border policies from devolving into an unmitigated catastrophe,” read the complaint.
Some have slammed the move to remove the pandemic-related restrictions, fearing that the change would precipitate a flood of unlawful migrants across the border, according to the National Review.
Facilities and border personnel have been overwhelmed and under-resourced for many months.
However, calls to maintain Title 42 have come from both sides of the aisle.
In early April, a bipartisan group of senators, including Kyrsten Sinema (D-Arizona) and James Lankford (R-Oklahoma), proposed legislation that would prevent the repeal of the Title 42 border policy unless the Biden administration presented a plan to reduce the risk of an increase in unlawful migrant border crossings, Yahoo News reports.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it would appeal the judge’s decision to maintain Title 42, claiming that there is no legitimate reason to keep it in place given the reduced public health threat.
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) invoked its authority under Title 42 due to the unprecedented public-health dangers caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. CDC has now determined, in its expert opinion, that continued reliance on this authority is no longer warranted in light of the current public-health circumstances. That decision was a lawful exercise of CDC’s authority,” the DOJ said. “The Department of Justice intends to appeal the court’s decision in Louisiana et al. v. CDC et al.”
“The Administration disagrees with the court’s ruling, and the Department of Justice has announced that it will appeal this decision. The authority to set public health policy nationally should rest with the Centers for Disease Control, not with a single district court,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated.
During the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, the CDC issued the Title 42 public health order to halt the spread of COVID-19. The rule allowed authorities to refuse migrants at U.S. land borders without processing them, and it has since been extended several times.
Potential migrants denied entry to the U.S. under Title 42 are either deported to their home countries or to Mexico, where human rights advocates say they have documented numerous violations.
Human Rights First claims to have identified nearly 10,000 cases of kidnapping, torture, rape, or other violent attacks on people barred or expelled from the border under Title 42 since Biden took office.