WASHINGTON: The United States (US) Supreme Court has halted the imminent scrapping of a key policy used by the Donald Trump administration to block migrants at the southwest border due to fear of an increase in immigrants who are not documented.
An emergency stay was placed on the removal of Title 42, planned by an order signed by Chief Justice John Roberts, which allowed the government to use Covid-19 safety protocols to block the entry of millions of migrants summarily. Chief Justice John Roberts placed the government policy of immigration on temporary hold.
It was a response to a last-minute petition from 20 states of the US arguing that ending Title 42 would create a gush in migrants, which in return would overwhelm their services. They said that the Department of Homeland Security predicted that border crossings of Latin Americans and other mostly Mexicans asking for asylum could triple by 18,000 daily.
What is Title 42?
On March 20, 2020, at the outset of the Covid-19 public health emergency, Trump previewed a measure to curb “mass uncontrolled cross-border movement,” a move that would ultimately go further in restricting migration than any of his administration’s previous hardline border policies.
The states argued that greatly increased number of migrants resulting from this termination will necessarily increase the States’ law enforcement, education, and healthcare costs.
The development came after an appeals court in Washington ruled last Friday that there was no longer justification for using Title 42 to reject asylum-seekers sweepingly. The policy was implemented in March 2020, in Trump’s final year in office, as the coronavirus pandemic swept into the United States. In their petition, the mostly Republican-led states include border states Texas and Arizona as well as Missouri, Ohio, and Virginia.
Roberts granted each party a day to reply. That left the possibility that Title 42 would still expire this week or that the court might choose to extend it while it conducts a more thorough study of the case. President Joe Biden’s administration earlier agreed with a lower court decision that Title 42 was no longer necessary to bar asylum-seekers and other migrants.
The White House Spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierrelast week stated that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was ready to handle the expected surge but provided few details on how it would do so. DHS said in a statement that Title 42 will remain in effect due to the high court’s stay order and that “individuals who attempt to enter the United States unlawfully will continue to be expelled to Mexico.” — AFP/APP
