In a major win for asylum-seekers and human rights advocates, a federal judge on Thursday ordered President Joe Biden’s administration to end a Trump-era policy of using Covid-19 pandemic to justify the swift deportation of migrant families.
The Trump administration first invoked Title 42, a section of the Public Health Safety Act, early last year. Biden has faced global criticism for continuing the policy. After failed negotiations with the Biden administration, advocacy groups that had initially sued while former President Donald Trump was in office resumed their legal challenge to the expulsions last month.
“President Biden should have ended this cruel and lawless policy long ago, and the court was correct to reject it today,” Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement welcoming U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan’s Thursday ruling.
In a 58-page ruling, Sullivan agreed that the Title 42 expulsions weren’t supported by federal law. The judge’s order, widely cheered by rights groups, is set to take effect in 14 days.
Politico noted Thursday that the Biden administration made its position on the policy clear last month:
[The] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an updated order that maintained there is still a public health justification for the Biden administration to continue kicking out migrants. The order can remain in effect indefinitely.
Sullivan’s order applies only to families, meaning the Biden administration can continue to expel single adults arriving at the U.S. southern border. Unaccompanied children have been exempt from being expelled using Title 42.
The Biden administration has not only resisted pressure to end Title 42 expulsions — and deported hundreds of thousands of people — but also announced in July that families who couldn’t be expelled under the policy would be “placed in expedited removal proceedings,” which rights activists slammed as “vile.”
Cecillia Wang, deputy legal director at the ACLU, pointed out Thursday that “there are so many ways the government can safely permit these families to go through the asylum process, in ways that ensure everyone’s health is protected. Quarantine, testing, and vaccination.”
Wang also took to Twitter to explain portions of Sullivan’s decision, which she called “a beacon of hope” that “reaffirms our pride in being a nation of refuge, as Congress intended.”
This is a beacon of hope. Two dear friends, a refugee from Vietnam and a refugee from Afghanistan, were in tears watching events in Afghanistan unfold. May our country uphold its duty and a main source of our national strength by always welcoming those seeking freedom and safety.
— Cecillia Wang 王德棻 (@WangCecillia) September 16, 2021
The Texas-based group RAICES — which was part of the coalition challenging the “inhumane and unnecessary” Title 42 policy — similarly applauded the judge’s decision.
“This is not the end of the battle against this practice,” RAICES said, “but it is a major step to ensure that the U.S. welcomes these asylum-seeking families — as we should.”
We will continue to call on them to STOP following the footsteps of the Trump administration when it comes to asylum, and end Title 42 immediately.
— RAICES (@RAICESTEXAS) September 16, 2021
Sawyer Hackett, executive director of People First Future, a political action committee launched by former Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro, also celebrated the news.
“We haven’t had a real asylum system for 18 months,” Hackett said. “This is a huge win for human rights.”
Refugees International U.S. senior advocate Yael Schacher shared some of the recent consequences of the Biden administration sending asylum-seekers to Mexico and other countries:
On a visit to Reynosa last month, I met a pregnant Honduran woman who was expelled under Title 42 and separated from her husband and son in Houston. Another Honduran woman I met had been raped since being expelled. Others in Reynosa, including a man I met from Tigray, have been waiting for months for a chance to seek asylum at the port of entry.
Building back better means creating a system whereby all asylum-seekers — children, families, and adults — are given a chance to seek protection rather than be returned to danger.
Schacher said Biden should accept Thursday’s ruling, issue a new termination memo for the Remain in Mexico policy, reopen ports to asylum-seekers, and “implement a fair system different from that of the previous administration.”
This post has been updated with comment from Refugees International.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.