This past Tuesday, the Biden administration stated that it does plan to comply with the court order from a Louisiana judge that will block the removal of the Trump-era border policy known as Title 42.
It had been recently scheduled by the Biden administration that the policy, which gives the Border Patrol the power to stop migrants along the southern border in an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19, to officially phase out on the 23rd of May.
“If and when the court issues the TRO [temporary restraining order] the department is planning to comply with that order,” stated one senior administration official, as reported by Politico.
“It really makes no sense to us that the plaintiffs would demand, and the court would order, that [Department of Homeland Security] be stopped in its use in expedited removal, which is going to prevent us from adequately preparing for the aggressive applications for immigration law when public health expires,” the official went on.
Additionally, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) put out its own plan to address the expected massive wave of mogrants seeking to flood over the border as soon as Title 42 fell off.
“When the Title 42 public health order is lifted, we anticipate migration levels will increase, as smugglers will seek to take advantage of and profit from vulnerable migrants,” stated DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in a memo talking about the agency’s plan.
Mayorkas also highlights, however, that the increases expected in attempted migrant crossings will end up putting even more burden on the efforts of the Border Patrol.
Despite the efforts of our dedicated DHS workforce and our partners executing this comprehensive plan, a significant increase in migrant encounters will substantially strain our system even further,” he claimed in a recent memo.
These steps come in response to growing concerns that predict that roughly 18,000 migrants could try and rush the border per day if the end of Title 42 finalizes, which is a sum that could cause illegal border crossings to reach a level of half a million migrants per month.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit targeting the Biden administration because of its choice to phase out the public health order.
“The Defendants now seek to eliminate their Title 42 border-control measures, which are the only rules holding back a devastating flood of illegal immigration,” reads the complaint.
“But they failed to follow the Administrative Procedure Act in attempting this destructive rescission of Title 42. Without justification or concern for Texans, the Defendants unlawfully disregarded the APA’s notice-and-comment requirements, refused to consider numerous factors of crucial importance to their rulemaking, and laid bare the incoherence of their decision-making,” read the lawsuit.