All eyes are on Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts after he became the final blockade against the end of the Title 42 immigration policy following the deadline passing for its termination on Wednesday.
The Trump-era pandemic policy, which has deterred nearly 2.5 million immigrants since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention implemented it in March 2020, was slated to end on Dec. 21 after lower courts called for it to be dissolved. But Roberts issued a temporary administrative stay on Dec. 19 that remains in effect for now, keeping the policy in place after 19 Republican-led states warned of a sharp influx of immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border and prompted the chief justice to ask for a response from the Biden administration.
On Wednesday, Republican attorneys general submitted their response to the Biden administration one day after the president’s Justice Department urged the court to allow the policy to end with a slight delay in order to address any flood of immigrants attempting entry into the country.
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“The government recognizes that the end of the Title 42 orders will likely lead to disruption and a temporary increase in unlawful border crossings. The government in no way seeks to minimize the seriousness of that problem,” the Republican attorneys general, which include border states Arizona and Texas, wrote in Dec. 21 court filings.
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the $1.7 trillion omnibus to avoid a government shutdown passed the Senate after it was briefly met with contention by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who insisted on an amendment to the spending bill that would keep the pandemic-era Title 42 policy in place.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) also proposed an amendment to increase border funding and extend the Title 42 health measure that expedites the deportation of immigrants seeking asylum.
Schumer said Thursday a deal was made with Republicans to vote on a block of 15 amendments, including Lee’s proposal and Sinema’s side-by-side amendment, but both failed to gain majority support and were not tethered to the omnibus package.
That leaves Roberts’s temporary administrative stay as the one stopgap keeping Title 42 in place while the high court decides whether to take up the GOP states’ challenge or side with the Biden administration’s request. Since then, military and state police have surged to El Paso, Texas, to form a line along the banks of the Rio Grande as a show of force in preparation for Title 42’s end.
The DOJ is still seeking to uphold lower court rulings that held the Biden administration could eliminate the policy but is now asking for a delay in the program’s end, saying it should remain in place until Dec. 27 if the Supreme Court decides the Title 42 case before Friday.
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“The government recognizes that the end of the Title 42 orders will likely lead to disruption and a temporary increase in unlawful border crossings,” U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the high court on Tuesday.
“The government in no way seeks to minimize the seriousness of that problem. But the solution to that immigration problem cannot be to extend indefinitely a public-health measure that all now acknowledge has outlived its public-health justification,” Prelogar added.
