Supreme Court Blocks Biden Administration Effort to Lift Title 42 Alien Expulsions

Sundance reporting for Conservative Treehouse 

The U.S. Supreme Court has blocked the Biden administration from lifting Title 42, which allowed Customs and Border Patrol to expel cross border migrants due to the COVID-19 emergency. [Background of Case Here]

In a 5-4 decision with Justice Gorsuch joining the liberal members, the Supreme Court ruled that Title-42 should remain in effect.  It wasn’t really a surprising decision if you think about the Biden administration hypocrisy.

On one hand the Biden administration extended the national COVID-19 emergency through April of 2023.

On the other hand, the same Biden administration was saying there was no COVID-19 emergency as the foundation for their effort to remove Title 42.

The Supreme Court seemed to recognize the inherent contradiction and applied a non-pretending logic.  If the national health emergency exists, then Title 42 still applies.  It’s really just a simple affirmation of Biden policy.  [Ruling Here]

WASHINGTON – In a blow to the Biden administration’s ability to set the nation’s immigration policy, the Supreme Court on Tuesday said the government could not halt the expulsion of migrants for public health reasons under the controversial Title 42 program.

That program, which has been in place since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, must continue while courts assess a lawsuit filed by Republican officials in 19 states who say that unwinding the Title 42 policy would unleash a national “catastrophe.”

The emergency intervention from the high court came days after the Trump-era program was set to expire. The justices announced they will hear arguments about the program next year, but limited their review to whether the conservative states may intervene in the litigation. Oral arguments are expected in February. In the meantime, expulsions will continue.

Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan would have denied the emergency request from the states and allowed the administration to lift the Title 42 policy. Associate Justices Neil Gorsuch and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the court’s ruling Tuesday.

While the decision was a legal loss for President Joe Biden, the political implications were less clear: The administration’s effort to lift Title 42 has drawn sharp criticism from Republicans and uncertainty from some Democrats who fear border communities were not prepared for an influx of migrants. The Supreme Court’s decision appeared to defuse that situation for now, even as it left thousands of migrants in limbo. (read more)