On Tuesday, the SCOTUS decided the Trump-era use of Title 42 will remain in place, giving border officials the ability to turn away migrants seeking to enter the United States.
Title 42 provides Presidents with the ability to limit the flow of migrants across US borders during a medical emergencies involving communicable diseases. It has remained in place since Donald Trump left office.
Since COVID has largely ended, migrant families and immigration advocates have sued the Federal Government, which led US District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan ruling the Biden admin lift Title 42 by 12/28/22.
Sullivan wrote in his decision, “It is unreasonable for the CDC to assume that it can ignore the consequences of any actions it chooses to take in the pursuit of fulfilling its goals, particularly when those actions included the extraordinary decision to suspend the codified procedural and substantive rights of non-citizens seeking safe harbor.”
The battle to keep or remove Title 42 has largely been fought along ideological lines. Democrats see it as a remnant of Trump-era policies. While Republicans see it as a necessary tool to manage the crisis at the border.
The Supreme Court’s ruling to keep Title 42 in place is a 5-4 victory for Republicans, particular those living along the US border. Ahead of the deadline, an estimated 80,000 migrants were ready to enter the Texas border town of El Paso. A surge of migrants of that scale would overwhelm the city that has already seen unprecedented number of illegal border crossers.
