Judge Emmett Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia struck down an order issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that allowed U.S. border officials to deport hundreds of thousands of immigrants on public health grounds, saying the decree was not enacted properly. First issued in 2020 by the Trump administration at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the Title 42 policy is based on a late 19th-century law designed to stop the “importation” of communicable diseases into the U.S. Immigrants processed under under Title 42 are barred from seeking asylum in the US and are instead summarily deported from the country. Tuesday’s ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which argued that Title 42 harms immigrants and violates US asylum law. Immigrants on US soil, including those crossing the border illegally, are allowed to apply for humanitarian protection. “This decision is huge for asylum seekers and will hopefully end the abuse of public health laws to prevent desperate people from seeking protection,” Lee Gelernt, the ACLU attorney who filed the lawsuit, told CBS News. complaint. Later Tuesday, lawyers for the Biden administration asked Sullivan to delay his decision for 5 weeks until Dec. 21, citing operational concerns about an abrupt end to Title 42 and the need for an “orderly transition” to regular immigration processing. “This transition period is critical to ensure that DHS can continue to carry out its mission of securing the Nation’s borders and conducting its border operations in an orderly manner,” Justice Department attorneys wrote. In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees US border enforcement, said Tuesday’s suspension of the decision would allow officials to implement “new policies” for processing immigrants, without elaborating. “We know that smugglers will lie to try to take advantage of vulnerable migrants, putting lives at risk,” the ministry said. Border patrol agents talk to a group of migrants taken from Tijuana, Baja California state, Mexico on November 11, 2022. GUILLERMO ARIAS/AFP via Getty Images In a 49-page opinion, Sullivan said he found the Title 42 policy to be “arbitrary and capricious,” in violation of the federal administrative law governing the regulations. He said the CDC failed to properly explain its rationale for authorizing an unprecedented deportation authority, as opposed to implementing less drastic measures to mitigate concerns about COVID, such as vaccinations and monoclonal antibodies. Sullivan also said the CDC “failed to address the harm to immigrants subject to deportation,” citing reports warning that immigrants could be persecuted or otherwise victimized in Mexico and elsewhere after being deported from the US. “It is unreasonable for the CDC to assume that it can ignore the consequences of any actions it chooses to take in pursuit of its goals, especially when those actions included the emergency decision to suspend the codified procedural and substantive rights of non-citizens seeking safe harbor,” Sullivan wrote. After continuing deportations for more than a year, the Biden administration announced in April the end of Title 42, citing improving pandemic conditions. But through a separate lawsuit, a Republican-led coalition of states persuaded a federal judge in Louisiana to halt the termination. While appealing the ruling, the Biden administration continued to rely heavily on Title 42 as a border management policy amid record immigration arrests along the southern border. He also recently expanded border deportations to prevent Venezuelan immigrants from entering the US illegally. In fiscal year 2022, which ended Sept. 30, U.S. officials along the southern border stopped immigrants nearly 2.4 million times, the highest annual tally on record. More than 1 million of those encounters with immigrants resulted in their deportation under Title 42, according to federal statistics. On paper, Title 42 applies to both the Canadian and Mexican land borders and to immigrants of all nationalities, but it has been used primarily along the southern border to return Mexican and Central American adult immigrants to Mexico or the Northern Territory. Central American Triangle. from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. For diplomatic and logistical reasons, the US has not used Title 42 on a large scale to deport immigrants of other nationalities. One exception was an air deportation to Haiti in the fall of 2021 following the sudden arrival of thousands of Haitian immigrants in Del Rio, Texas. For more than two years, Mexico has only allowed the US to deport migrants from Mexico and Central America to its territory. But in October, Mexico announced it would accept deportations of Venezuelans as part of a broader strategy that included a U.S. agreement to allow up to 24,000 Venezuelans to enter the country legally. While the Trump and Biden administrations have both portrayed the Title 42 policy as a tool to reduce coronavirus cases at border facilities, the public health rationale has been questioned by public health experts, including CDC officials who opposed its implementation. policy. More Camilo Montoya-Galvez Camilo Montoya-Galvez is the immigration reporter for CBS News. Based in Washington, D.C., he covers immigration policy and politics.
