Expert: Biden Admin. Wants to Keep Title 42 Options Open

Miriam Jordan, New York Times, Dec. 7, 2022

"The Biden administration on Wednesday appealed a court order directing it to repeal a pandemic-era policy that has allowed the rapid expulsion of migrants at the border, but an administration official said the government still planned to end the expulsion policy later this month. Last month, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia deemed the policy, known as Title 42, arbitrary and unnecessary to control the spread of Covid-19. Judge Emmet Sullivan had set a deadline of Dec. 21 to allow the government time to prepare for an expected surge in people seeking entry into the United States once the policy was lifted. The government said it still planned to meet the deadline, but the appeal suggests it is seeking to preserve the authority of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to impose public health orders regulating migration at the border when needed in the future. ... [L]egal scholars said that the appeal suggested that the government was not abandoning Title 42 altogether, or conceding that the policy was illegal. “They want to be able to use Title 42 if they choose to do so in the future,” said Steve Yale-Loehr, immigration law professor at Cornell Law School."