Judge: Asylum restrictions must continue
NEW ORLEANS — Pandemic-related restrictions on migrants seeking asylum on the southern border must continue, a judge ruled Friday in an order blocking the Biden administration’s plan to lift them early next week.
The ruling was just the latest instance of a court derailing the president’s proposed immigration policies along the U.S. border with Mexico.
The Justice Department said the administration will appeal, but the ruling virtually ensures that restrictions will not end as planned on Monday. A delay would be a blow to advocates who say rights to seek asylum are being trampled, and a relief to some Democrats who fear that a widely anticipated increase in illegal crossings would put them on the defensive in an already difficult midterm election year.
Migrants have been expelled more than 1.9 million times since March 2020 under Title 42, a public health provision that denies them a chance to request asylum under U.S. law and international treaty on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.
U.S. District Judge Robert Summerhays in Lafayette, Louisiana, ordered that the restrictions stay in place while a lawsuit led by Arizona and Louisiana — and now joined by 22 other states — plays out in court.
Summerhays sided with the states in ruling that President Joe Biden’s administration failed to follow administrative procedures requiring public notice and time to gather public comment on the plan to end the restrictions. And he said the states made the case that they would suffer harm if the restrictions end.
The White House said it disagreed with the ruling but would comply while it is appealed. “The authority to set public health policy nationally should rest with the Centers for Disease Control, not with a single district court,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
The case goes next to the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has ruled against key Biden administration policies in the past. The court is dominated by Republican nominees, including six nominated by former President Donald Trump, who also appointed Summerhays.