Justices cancel arguments
The Supreme Court on Thursday canceled arguments in a challenge to ending a pandemic- era immigration measure, a step that suggested it may dismiss the case based on the Biden administration’s announcement that the health emergency would end in May.
The justices had been scheduled to hear arguments over the measure, known as Title 42, on March 1. A terse entry on the court’s docket Thursday announced that the case had been removed from the calendar and gave no further explanation.
The development followed a brief filed last week by Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar, a lawyer for the administration, saying the case would soon be moot.
“Absent other relevant developments, the end of the public health emergency will (among other consequences) terminate the Title 42 orders and moot this case,” Prelogar wrote.
The cour t ’ s action Thursday indicated that it was inclined to agree and that, barring other developments, it would dismiss the case and lift a stay that had kept the measure in place.
Title 42 has allowed even migrant s who might otherwise qualify for asylum to be swiftly expelled at the southern border. The policy, introduced by the Trump administration in March 2020, has been used to expel migrants — including many asylumseekers — about 2.5 million times.
Humanitarian organizations have said the policy prevents migrants fleeing violence and persecution from obtaining a safe harbor required by U. S. and international law, but border officials said they feared that its demise could fuel a surge in illegal crossings along the already overwhelmed border.
The administration has acknowledged that ending Title 42 would have consequences.
“The government recognizes that the end of the Title 42 orders will likely lead to disruption and a temporary increase in unlawful border crossings,” Prelogar told the justices in December.
“The government in no way seeks to minimize the seriousness of that problem. But the solution to that immigration problem cannot be to extend indefinitely a public-health measure that all now acknowledge has outlived its public-health justification.”
In the brief filed last week, Prelogar wrote that the justification would evaporate entirely in two months. “The anticipated end of the public health emergency on May 11, and the resulting expiration of the operative Title 42 order, would render this case moot,” she wrote.
The Supreme Court in December blocked a trial judge’s ruling that would have lifted the measure. That was a provisional victory for the 19 mostly Republican- led states that had sought to keep Title 42 in place, saying that states often must bear the brunt of the effects from a surge in border crossings.
“The failure to grant a stay will cause a crisis of unprecedented proportions at the border,” lawyers for the states wrote in an emergency application, adding that “daily illegal crossings may more than double.”