The Justice Department said Tuesday that the end of the U.S. COVID-19 pandemic emergency will end Title 42 orders that are used to deport immigrants at the southern border.
“Absent other relevant developments, the conclusion of Public health emergency would (among other consequences) terminate the Title 42 orders and prosecute this case,” the department attorney said in a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court. Border after Title 42 orders expire.”
Because the Title 42 order “would have expired by its terms,” ​​a lawsuit seeking only prospective relief “would no longer present a ‘live case or controversy,'” the lawyers added.
“In that event, the government will ask the appellate court to vacate the district court’s judgment and remand to hear the private respondents’ case,” the department said.
The mandates bill would require up to 42 deportations of refugees until the Covid-19 mandates, emergency removals.
A U.S. Border Patrol agent directs a group of Cuban immigrants at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection station in Marathon, Florida, on Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023. (Matthias J. Ockner/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Justice Department Building in Washington, DC on Thursday, August 18, 2022 (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
The authors argued that the discussion of the underlying case would also affect the petitioners’ attempt to intervene.
Title 42 was first introduced by the Trump administration in March 2020 as a pandemic and has been used to remove more than 2.5 million asylum seekers.
House Ignores White House Objections, Votes to End Covid Health Emergency
President Biden speaks during the State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023, in Washington, DC. (Jacqueline Martin/AP/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
President Biden has moved to end the emergency restrictions, and Republicans have sued to keep them in place. The Supreme Court has so far upheld the rules. White House officials say they can continue to deport immigrants under immigration law.
Late last year, a U.S. District Court judge with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an intervention effort by 19 GOP-led states to set a Dec. 21 deadline to end the program.
A view of cargo containers placed by US authorities on the banks of the Rio Grande in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico’s Chihuahua state on December 28, 2022. (HERIKA MARTINEZ/AFP via Getty Images)
The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to uphold the DC court’s order.
Tuesday’s brief comes a week after the Biden administration announced its plan to end the public health emergency.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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