Judge Invalidates Rule Allowing Migrant Expulsions on Border/DHS memo
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The pandemic-era health order, known as Title 42, has allowed the government to expel hundreds of thousands of migrants who otherwise might be allowed to pursue asylum claims.
A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the government from continuing to use a Trump-era public health emergency measure to swiftly expel migrants who cross the southern border unlawfully, an order that could enable thousands of potential asylum seekers to enter the country.
Judge Emmet Sullivan for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia concluded that the measure, known as Title 42, was “arbitrary and capricious” and had been implemented in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.
Originally invoked by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Title 42 has been used as a key enforcement tool at the border since the Trump administration first implemented it. The measure has held back thousands of migrants who otherwise would most likely be allowed to enter the country and process asylum claims.
Most migrants affected by the measure are those whom Mexico agrees to accept; other migrants must be detained and flown to their home countries if not given authority to enter the United States.
The decision will lead to a significant change in how the Biden administration manages what has been a record number of unauthorized border crossings. The public health authority allows border officials to act more quickly than under the ordinary procedures that are designed to guarantee migrants the right to petition for refuge in the United States.
Backlogs at the border, before Title 42 was imposed, had sometimes caused overcrowding in holding facilities, which drew condemnation from human rights groups, created images of chaos and raised questions about the administration’s ability to handle the influx.
“What this means is that normal immigration law is in effect at the border. Migrants cannot be expelled to Mexico or their home countries,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director at the American Immigration Council, said.
- Top Border Official Resigns: The commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection resigned after a standoff with the Homeland Security secretary, who had demanded that he either step down or be fired.
- Waiting for Refugee Status: As the Biden administration prioritizes resettling people fleeing Ukraine and Afghanistan, many other refugees are waiting years in a system struggling to rebuild.
- A New Plan: A recently introduced humanitarian parole program offers some Venezuelans a narrow legal path into the country. The initiative appears to be reducing the number of illegal crossings of the U.S. border, but it has left thousands of migrants in a bureaucratic limbo.
“There could be a sudden surge in overcrowding, as the agency tries to frantically find bed space to put people,” he said.
The Homeland Security Department late Tuesday filed for a five-week delay before the order went into effect to give officials time to prepare.
“During the period of this freeze, we will prepare for an orderly transition to new policies at the border,” Marsha Espinosa, a department spokeswoman said in a statement.
Under the ruling, migrants who come to ports of entry along the border would not be turned away but would be allowed to lodge asylum petitions and perhaps remain in the country while they are under review.
The U.S. Border Patrol used the health order more than one million times last year, primarily to turn back migrants from Mexico and Central America. More recently, the measure was invoked against Venezuelans who had been crossing the border in large numbers after fleeing their broken country.
Earlier this year, the Biden administration announced that it had planned to suspend the measure and resume normal border processing procedures, only to be blocked by a federal judge in Louisiana after Republican states filed suit.
“The ruling hopefully puts an end to Title 42 for good and will restore our country’s long commitment to providing desperate asylum seekers with an opportunity to present their case,” Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, said. It filed a suit on behalf of a group of asylum-seeking families who were not able to enter the United States.
It is possible that Republicans, who have supported the continued use of the order, could introduce legislation next year to keep it in place. But it would probably die in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
In requesting the emergency delay of the judge’s order, the government said it would need to move additional resources to the border and coordinate with nongovernmental organizations and state and local governments to help prepare for what is expected to be a large new influx in migrants.
Last month, nearly 40 percent of migrants who crossed the border were expelled under Title 42.
Judge Sullivan said that in adopting a measure intended to control the movement of the coronavirus across the border, the C.D.C. had failed in its obligation to apply the least restrictive means necessary to prevent spread of disease, and that the agency had not properly explained why it took this action.
He said that the government had not shown the policy to be effective as a measure to control the spread of disease.
“The lack of evidence regarding the effectiveness of the Title 42 policy is especially egregious in view of C.D.C.’s previous conclusion that the use of quarantine and travel restrictions, in the absence of evidence of their utility, is detrimental to efforts to combat the spread of the communicable disease,” the judge wrote in the 49-page ruling.
He noted that at the same time Title 42 was preventing asylum seekers from entering the country, millions of other travelers were crossing the border under less restrictive standards, such as in buses and cars.
Judge Sullivan referred to evidence provided by plaintiffs in the case that during the first seven months that Title 42 was in place, border authorities encountered on average “just one migrant per day who tested positive for Covid-19.”
The judge also agreed with the ACLU’s argument that the agency had failed to consider alternatives such as processing migrants outdoors and ramping up vaccinations to limit the spread of Covid-19.
The Homeland Security Department developed plans to address a spike in migration last spring, when President Biden, trying to end some of the most restrictive immigration policies of his predecessor, signaled his plans to end the policy, which the Trump administration introduced in March 2020.
Several border states went to court in an attempt to preserve Title 42, arguing that its end would cause a drastic increase in migrant arrivals.
President Biden has struggled to handle spiraling numbers of people from around the globe seeking to enter the United States. The number of migrants encountered along the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2022 exceeded 2.3 million, a record high fueled by migration from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. Thousands of Ukrainians and Russians also sought entry, as well as people from Africa and Asia, where economies have been battered by the pandemic and inflation triggered by the war in Ukraine.
On Saturday, the nation’s top border official, Chris Magnus, the Customs and Border Protection commissioner, resigned at the request of the Biden administration. President Biden had nominated him to steer the sprawling agency that employs 60,000 people, selecting him because he had reformed police practices in departments he led. But the reforms he proposed rankled the Border Patrol, and he was asked to step down after less than a year.
When the government recently expanded the use of Title 42 to address large numbers of Venezuelans crossing the border, it also created a narrow legal path for up to 24,000 Venezuelans to come to the country by obtaining a sponsor and applying from outside the country for humanitarian parole. Officials have credited the combination of the two actions with slashing the number of Venezuelans crossing illegally.
Those numbers will likely go up now that the public health authority is off the table.
Miriam Jordan reports from the grassroots perspective on immigrants and their impact on the demographics, society and economy of the United States. Before joining The Times, she covered immigration at the Wall Street Journal and was a correspondent in Brazil, India, Hong Kong and Israel.
Eileen Sullivan is a Washington correspondent covering the Department of Homeland Security. Previously, she worked at the Associated Press where she won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. @esullivannyt
Date: November 15, 2022 at 9:05:31 PM EST
Subject: Statement from DHS on Decision Regarding Title 42
Reply-To: departmentofhomelandsecurity@messages.dhs.gov
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Office of Public Affairs
Statement from DHS on Decision Regarding Title 42
“The
United States will continue to fully enforce our immigration laws at
our border. In response to the court’s order, the Department of Justice
is filing an unopposed stay motion. 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. 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.
“We know that smugglers will lie to try to take advantage of vulnerable migrants, putting lives at risk.
“We continue to work with countries throughout the Western Hemisphere to take enforcement actions against the smuggling networks that entice migrants to take the dangerous and often deadly journey to our land borders and to address the root causes of irregular migration that are challenging our hemisphere as a whole.”
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