The Supreme Court of the United States decided on Tuesday to indefinitely maintain the law known as Title 42, which speeds up the expulsion of migrants at the border, contrary to the expectations of immigration advocates who expected its end this week.
In the decision released this Tuesday, the highest judicial body in the United States extended the temporary suspension that the president of the court, John Roberts, had issued last week.
By order of the court, the case will be discussed in February and the suspension will be maintained until the magistrates decide on the case.
This measure, known as Title 42 in reference to a 1944 public health law, was applied by the then President of the United States, Donald Trump, at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Under the restrictions, authorities have removed asylum seekers from within the United States 2.5 million times and turned away the majority of people who applied for asylum at the border, with the goal of preventing the spread of COVID-19. 19.
Immigration advocates filed a lawsuit to end the policy, saying it goes against US and international obligations for people fleeing to the US to escape persecution.
The organizations also argued that the policy has become outdated as treatments for Covid-19 improve.
The Supreme Court ruling comes as thousands of migrants gather on the Mexican side of the border, crowding shelters.
“We are deeply disappointed for all the desperate asylum seekers who will continue to suffer under Title 42, but we will continue to fight to end the measure,” said Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the organizations that advocated for the end of this measure.
In the ruling released Tuesday, the Supreme Court specifically explained that it will review the question of whether states have the right to intervene in the legal fight over Title 42.
Both the federal government and immigration advocates have argued that states have waited too long to intervene, and even if they hadn’t waited that long, they wouldn’t have the right to intervene.
Justices Neil Gorsuch and Ketanji Brown Jackson argued that the “current border crisis is not a Covid-19 crisis.”
“And courts should not perpetuate administrative orders designed for an emergency just because elected officials failed to address a different emergency. We are a court of law, not legislators of last resort,” the Supreme Court justices emphasized.
A federal judge had granted the organizations’ requests in November and set a December 21 deadline to end the measure.
Conservative-leaning states appealed to the Supreme Court, warning that an increase in migration would affect public services and cause an “unprecedented calamity” that they said the federal government had no plans to deal with.
The federal government asked the Supreme Court to reject the states’ effort, though it acknowledged that an abrupt end to the restrictions would likely lead to “a temporary halt and increase in illegal border crossings.”
Source: TSF
