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The Justice Department urged the Supreme Court to let the Title 42 pandemic border-expulsion policy expire, saying it is prepared to step in and defend against illegal immigration using other tools.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said the border situation likely will deteriorate once the policy is lifted, but she said that’s not a justification for keeping a policy that was put in place in 2020 to control the spread of the coronavirus.
“The government recognizes that the end of the Title 42 orders will likely lead to disruption and a temporary increase in unlawful border crossings,” she wrote. “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.”
Title 42, which allows the government to quickly expel migrants at the border during a public health emergency, was supposed to expire at midnight Tuesday, but that was put on hold Monday by order of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
He was responding to an emergency filing by a coalition of Republican-led states pleading to be able to intervene and make the case for continuing Title 42, and asking that the program be left intact while those arguments proceed.
Title 42 has become the government’s most powerful tool in tamping down illegal immigration.
