On Wednesday, the White House announced its intent to ask a federal court to reverse an order placed by a judge, ending the Trump-era Title 42 health policy which was put in place for migrants attempting to cross the southern border.
The Department of Homeland Security said it would ask the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia for a stay of a Nov. 15 ruling by Senior US District Judge Emmet Sullivan labeling the policy as “arbitrary and capricious,” and declaring it void.
Title 42 was implemented by the Trump administration at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, allowing border agents to quickly expel migrants back across the border for public health reasons without first hearing their asylum claims.
The Biden administration pushed to bring the policy to an end, but its initial order was blocked by a Louisiana federal judge in May, after a lawsuit filed by 24 Republican state attorneys general warned that lifting Title 42 could bring in a surge of migrants that would overwhelm immigration resources.
In response to a separate lawsuit, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of a group of asylum-seekers, Sullivan gave the Biden administration until Dec. 21 to bring the order to an end, saying that he did so “WITH GREAT RELUCTANCE.”
In its filing, the Biden administration said it wanted the appeal of Sullivan’s order suspended, until the New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals declared their ruling on the May decision, and while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention drew up plans for a replacement policy.
“If the government prevails in the Louisiana litigation … Plaintiffs’ challenges to the Title 42 orders will be moot,” the filing read, adding that the Biden Administration disagreed with Sullivan’s decision and insisted the “CDC’s Title 42 Orders were lawful … and that this Court erred in vacating those agency actions.”
The filing indicated that the Department of Health and Human Services and the CDC intend “to undertake a new rulemaking to reconsider the framework under which the CDC Director may exercise her authority … to respond to dangers posed by future communicable diseases.”
In April, the CDC found that Title 42 was no longer necessary due to the waning pandemic.
“Based on the public health landscape, the current status of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the procedures in place for the processing of covered noncitizens … CDC has determined that a suspension of the right to introduce such covered noncitizens is no longer necessary,” the agency said at the time.
Title 42 has been used to expel migrants more than 2.4 million times since March 2020.
The ban has largely fallen on migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Mexico, because the country allows them to be returned from the United States. Mexico also began accepting migrants from Venezuelans who are expelled from the United States under Title 42, causing a drop in Venezuelans seeking asylum at the border.
The asylum rule has been used by the Biden administration to expel migrant families and single adults, though not children traveling alone.
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