Appeals court clears the way to end removal of migrants under Title … – USA TODAY

• A federal appeals court ruled against GOP states seeking to retain the Title 42 immigration policy.
• But the states have already signaled they will ask the Supreme Court to review the decision.
• The public health program allows for rapid expulsion of migrants because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

WASHINGTON – A federal appeals court Friday denied a request by conservative states seeking to retain a pandemic policy that allows the federal government to rapidly expel migrants in a legal battle over immigration and public health likely headed to the Supreme Court.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit blocked an effort by Republican officials in 19 states, including Texas and Arizona, to intervene in the case. The states already had signaled that they are prepared to file an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court.

At issue is a Trump-era policy known as Title 42 that permits Customs and Border Protection to expel migrants without the usual legal review to Mexico or to their home countries to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in holding facilities. The Biden administration announced in April that it intended to wind down the policy.

Strategy: Biden strategy on Title 42 reflects effort to preserve power, experts say

Last month, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington vacated the policy and gave the Biden administration until Dec. 21 to end it. The administration appealed the decision but was moving to end its use next week. It was then that the Republican-led states stepped in, asking to join the lawsuit and temporarily block Sullivan’s ruling.

But a three-judge panel of the appeals court denied that request in an unsigned order Friday. Two of the appeals court judges were nominated by Democratic presidents and the third was nominated by former President Donald Trump. The appeals court said that the states were seeking to jump into the case late in the process.

“Nowhere in their papers do they explain why they waited eight to fourteen months to move to intervene,” the court said in its order.  

In earlier paperwork, the states signaled they were preparing to appeal an adverse ruling to the Supreme Court, likely on its emergency docket. That would put another high-profile immigration dispute on the Supreme Court’s docket: A 5-4 majority of the court sided with the Biden administration earlier this year on a Trump policy requiring migrants to remain in Mexico while awaiting the processing of their asylum claims.    

The case, which was returned to a lower court, came back to the fore this week when a U.S. District judge temporarily blocked the administration from ending the program.

The high court also recently debated another Biden immigration policy in a dispute with conservative states who disagree with the administration’s enforcement and deportation priorities.

Title 42 has been used to expel migrants more than 2.4 million times since its implementation and has bottled up tens of thousands of migrants in Mexican border cities who are waiting to request asylum in the United States.

A separate ruling from a federal judge in Louisiana in May blocked Biden’s plan to terminate Title 42. That case is being reviewed by the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

Contributing: Arizona Republic, Tami Abdollah