The Supreme Court voted 5-4 on Tuesday in favor of keeping Title 42 in place while legal challenges around the Trump-era border restriction play out.
The decision comes about a week after Chief Justice John Roberts stayed a lower-court order that would have ended the pandemic-era policy on December 21. Title 42 allows for asylum-seekers at the border to be expelled to prevent the spread of communicable diseases.
On Tuesday, the court agreed to keep that pause in place, granting an emergency request by 19 Republican attorneys general who warned that allowing Title 42 to expire would lead to an explosion of illegal immigrants crossing the southern border. Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the court’s three liberals in voting against the request for a stay.
The Supreme Court also agreed to hear oral arguments in February and rule on whether states can intervene, with a decision by the end of June, NBC News reported.
Washington-based U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan had blocked Title 42 in November, saying the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s implementation was “arbitrary and capricious,” and setting the December 21 expiration date. The Republican attorneys general filed their emergency appeal, written by Mark Brnovich from Arizona. “No one reasonably disputes that the failure to grant a stay will cause a crisis of unprecedented proportions at the border,” the filing read. “DHS estimates that daily illegal crossings may more than double from around 7,000/day to 15,000/day once Title 42 is terminated.”
Terminating Title 42 would “recklessly and needlessly endanger more Americans and migrants by exacerbating the catastrophe that is occurring at our southern border,” Brnovich said.
The Biden administration had argued against the emergency bid of the Republican attorneys general, claiming that that the Republican states didn’t have the legal right to challenge Sullivan’s ruling.