President Joe Biden said his administration would comply with the Supreme Court’s order keeping in place sweeping, coronavirus border controls.
(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden said his administration would comply with the Supreme Court’s order keeping in place sweeping, coronavirus border controls.
“The court is not going to decide until June, apparently, and in meantime we have to enforce it,” Biden told reporters Tuesday after the Supreme Court ordered that the border restrictions, known as Title 42, stay in effect while litigation goes forward. He said lifting the measure was “overdue.”
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the administration would prepare for eventually being able to lift the restrictions even as it continues to enforce them.
“We are advancing our preparations to manage the border in a secure, orderly, and humane way when Title 42 eventually lifts and will continue expanding legal pathways for immigration,” she said in a statement.
The court earlier Tuesday granted a request from Republican-led states who said lifting the rule would lead to a surge in migrants on the southern border that the federal government was not prepared to handle. The justices voted 5-4 to block a lower court decision that would have invalidated Title 42 as of last Wednesday.
Read more: Supreme Court Orders Title 42 Border Restrictions Kept in Effect
The justices will hear arguments on one aspect of the case, a bid by states to intervene in defense of the policy. Those arguments could be heard in late February or early March, the court indicated.
The decision leaves Biden in a precarious political position. The court is leaving in place a policy the administration argues has outlived its usefulness as a public-health measure, even as authorities have used it more than one million times under Biden’s watch to quickly expel migrants trying to cross the border.
“Title 42 is a public health measure, not an immigration-enforcement measure, and it should not be extended indefinitely,” Jean-Pierre said Tuesday, urging Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform.
“Today’s order gives Republicans in Congress plenty of time to move past political finger-pointing and join their Democratic colleagues in solving the challenge at our border by passing the comprehensive reform measures and delivering the additional funds for border security that President Biden has requested,” she added.
Border Surge
Republicans have blamed the president’s immigration policies for historic numbers of migrant apprehensions at the US-Mexico border and have said lifting Title 42 will only worsen the situation.
The White House has pushed back on those accusations, saying that poor economic and safety conditions in Latin America have fueled migration to the US and that congressional inaction — spurred by GOP opposition — on overhauls to the nation’s immigration laws have contributed.
Former President Donald Trump imposed the controls early in the coronavirus pandemic. The measure allowed the US to quickly expel migrants due to public-health concerns.
The policy for months has been entangled in a complex legal battle.
Immigrant-rights advocates sued to lift the health measure, saying the government could no longer justify using it to deny migrants their legal right to claim asylum in the US. Title 42 has been used more than 2 million times to expel migrants since the spring of 2020, according to government data.
A federal judge ruled in November that the administration must lift Title 42. But Chief Justice John Roberts last week put that decision on hold to consider an appeal by GOP-led states that said ending the policy would create “a crisis of unprecedented proportions” at the southern border.
The Biden administration urged the court to let it end the restrictions, saying it would use other immigration measures to address the expected rise in illegal crossings.
“People should not listen to the lies of smugglers who take advantage of vulnerable migrants, putting lives at risk,” the Homeland Security Department said in a statement. “The border is not open, and we will continue to fully enforce our immigration laws.”
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