No longer ‘justification’ left for Title 42-

The Biden administration asked a delay of the contentious Title 42 health project's expiration until after Christmas in its Tuesday appeal to the Supreme Court, arguing that the measure had outlived its usefulness.

In response to Chief Justice John Roberts' Monday order keeping the policy in place after 19 GOP-led states filed a "eleventh-hour" emergency appeal, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote, "The government accepts that the end of the Title 42 orders will likely lead to disruption and a temporary increase in unlawful border crossings."

The government makes no effort to minimize how serious that issue is, added Prelogar. "However, extending indefinitely a public-health measure that everyone now acknowledges has outlived its public-health justification cannot be the solution to that immigration problem.

Prelogar argued in the 44-page report that the states had the wrong idea to maintain the policy in place "as a transitory immigration-control measure.

The solicitor general wrote: "Applicants urge this Court to compel the government to continue relying on now-obsolete public-health orders as the Nation's de facto immigration policy rather than returning to the immigration system prescribed by Congress."

The Center for Prevention and Control adopted Title 42 in March 2020, allowing for the summary deportation of immigrants to Mexico on the pretext that they'd spread COVID-19. Since then, about 2.5 million migrants have been turned away based on this policy without having their asylum claims heard.

All nationalities were subject to the restrictions, but they were disproportionately imposed on inhabitants of the nations that Mexico had agreed to take back: Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and, more recently, Venezuela.