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The Supreme Court said on Tuesday that it was controversial The Trump-era border control is known as Title 42 That would remain in place in the face of legal challenges, which would ensure that federal authorities quickly deport immigrants at U.S. borders for at least the next few months.
The 5-4 margin was a victory for Republican-led states The Supreme Court should intervene and block a lower court opinion that ordered a stay of jurisdiction. The Biden administration has said it is ready The authority came to an end and took precautions to avoid confusion on the border and a potential surge of immigrants.
In this order, the court also agreed to entertain the states’ appeal within this period. The court said it will hear arguments on the case during its oral session beginning in February 2023.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan said they would reject the application, but did not explain their thinking. Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch and liberal Justice Katanji Brown Jackson joined in the ruling rejecting his thinking.
Gorsuch said he “didn’t discount states’ concerns” about border security. But Gorsuch noted that Title 42 was put in place to fight Covid-19 and that “the current border crisis is not a Covid crisis.”
“Courts should not perpetuate executive orders designed for one emergency merely because elected officials fail to address another emergency,” Gorsuch wrote.
Beginning in March 2020, Title 42 authorized U.S. border agents to immediately deport migrants who crossed the southern border in the name of Covid-19 prevention.
Immigrant advocates and public health experts have long condemned the use of public health authority at the U.S. southern border, arguing that it is an inappropriate pretext for preventing immigrants from entering the United States. In nearly three years, the authority has been used more than 2 million times to deport immigrants, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
At the border, migrants have been waiting in camps in Mexico for months, waiting for the authority’s decision so they can seek asylum in the United States. Migrant advocates have tried to spread updates and information to migrants, but frustration has increased, especially as temperatures drop.
El Paso, Texas, is at the center of the crisis Thousands of migrants have crossed that part of the border. The city opened government-run shelters to care for the migrants in its convention center, hotels and several disused schools, though some still had to sleep on the streets in freezing temperatures.
The Department of Homeland Security is developing a plan to end the power, including increasing resources at the border, targeting smugglers and working with international partners.
The White House said it would comply with the order.
“Today’s order gives Republicans in Congress plenty of time to cross the political finger and join their Democratic colleagues in solving the challenge at our border by passing comprehensive reform measures and providing President Biden with the additional funding requested for border security.” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Preloger acknowledged in the Supreme Court last week that returning to traditional norms at the border would be a challenge, but said there was no longer any basis to keep the Covid-era rules in place.
“The government in no way seeks to minimize the severity of the problem. “But as a solution to that immigration problem, the public-health measure cannot be extended indefinitely, which everyone now agrees has violated its public-health justification,” Prelogar wrote in the Supreme Court filing.
Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents Title 42 families, underscored in arguments the dangers faced by asylum seekers subject to the mandate and sent back to Mexico.
Lee Gelernt, lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the case, said in a statement to CNN that they are “deeply disappointed” by the ruling, but will continue to fight to end the policy.
“We are deeply disappointed for all the desperate asylum seekers who continue to suffer because of Title 42, but ultimately we will continue to fight to end the policy,” Gelernt said.
Steve Vladek, a CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law, called the order “practically bizarre.”
“The order is procedurally peculiar in that it grants a request to freeze a district court judgment only to determine whether states, which are not even parties to that judgment, should be permitted to intervene and defend that judgment on appeal.” Vladek said. “This has enormous potential consequences for the ability of states going forward to fight to prevent the current president from repealing the policies of his predecessors, let alone Title 42.”
GOP-led states argued that they would be harmed by deauthorization because of the influx of immigrants entering the United States.
“The border crisis which the respondents seek to make strange and curious will have a great impact on the states,” says a filing submitted last Wednesday.
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
