Judge blocks Title 42 lapse

A federal judge will temporarily enjoin the Biden administration from ending border enforcement under Title 42 USC Section 265.

Details of the Title 42 ruling, and the case

Judge Robert R. Summerhays of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana announced his decision in an in camera meeting in the case of Arizona v. CDC.

The parties will confer regarding the specific terms to be contained in the temporary restraining order and attempt to reach agreement.

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, one of twenty State Attorneys General in the lawsuit, told The Epoch Times:

Joe Biden’s reckless decision to rescind Title 42 would have flooded our already stressed southern border with illegal immigrants. Fortunately, today a judge has granted our request to halt this enormous threat to our national security.

The original motion for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) spoke eloquently of the irreparable harms of terminating Title 42 enforcement.

Title 42 refers to a section of the Public Health Service Act of 1944. That section calls for denying entry to persons from pandemic or epidemic areas of the world. Indeed the White House, as recently as April 20, was considering not terminating Title 42 enforcement.

Senators Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) have legislation pending to keep Title 42 in force until the current national emergency ends. They have widespread bipartisan support for such a measure.

No one in the administration has commented on the judge’s proposed order on the motion.

Quotes from the motion

Federal Defendants’ monopoly on information about what actions they are taking frustrates both the States’ ability to seek relief against the irreparable harms they will otherwise incur and this court’s authority to grant relief if it concludes that the termination order is unlawful.

Once the Order is put into effect—even partially—few if any of the resulting harms can ever be remedied by this Court. That is particularly true as money damages are not available and it is doubtful that this Court could effectively rescind unlawful grants of asylum or parole into the U.S. Indeed, the irrevocable nature of the harms that the Title 42 Termination will cause is precisely why the bipartisan calls for abandonment or delay of the Order have been so resounding.