US judge throws out policy used to block migrant entry
A US federal judge ruled on Tuesday that the government could not use public health rules to block the entry of asylum-seeking migrants, marking the apparent end of a controversial Donald Trump-era policy that has been criticized as cruel and ineffective.
Judge Emmet Sullivan said Title 42, which has been used to expel hundreds of thousands of people since being invoked in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, was an “arbitrary and capricious” policy that violated government procedures.
The Department of Homeland Security filed a stay motion asking that Tuesday’s decision be suspended for five weeks, but stressed it was doing so as a transitional measure.
“The delay in implementation of the court’s order will allow the government to prepare for an orderly transition to new policies at the border,” a statement said. “But to be clear, under the unopposed motion, Title 42 would remain in place for some period. During the period of this freeze, we will prepare for an orderly transition to new policies at the border.”
The stay, until midnight on December 21, would give the government time to put in place tools to stem the flow of migrants at the southern border.
The ballooning number at the border – more than 200,000 have been interdicted each month in 2022 – is an increasing political headache for President Joe Biden and his Democratic Party, who the Republicans have repeatedly sought to paint as soft on illegal immigration.
Tuesday’s ruling came after a lawsuit brought in January by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which accused the Department of Homeland Security and Border Patrol of “summary expulsion” of vulnerable families seeking asylum who showed no signs of COVID-19 infection.
“This is a huge victory and one that literally has life-and-death stakes,” said ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, who led the lawsuit.
“We have said all along that using Title 42 against asylum seekers was inhumane and driven purely by politics. Hopefully this ruling will end this horrific policy once and for all,” he said in a statement.
The ruling came six months after a Louisiana judge ruled in a separate suit that Biden’s administration, which inherited the Title 42 policy from Trump, could not drop it.
The judge in that case said ending the use of Title 42 rule would violate official government procedures.
