JAC Urges Biden DOJ to Seek Emergency Stay Pending Appeal
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Today, a judge for the Western District Court of Louisiana ruled in favor of 24 plaintiff states in Arizona v. CDC, granting a preliminary injunction blocking the May 23rd wind-down of Title 42, as ordered by the CDC. Here is a statement from Karen Tumlin, Founder and Director at Justice Action Center:
“Today’s ruling in Arizona v. CDC is disappointing, but not surprising. This case has followed the red state playbook of litigating against the Biden Administration on procedural grounds when the Biden Administration has taken steps to end Trump’s racist, cruel, and unlawful immigration policies. We’ve seen this play out in Biden v. Texas, the Remain in Mexico case that is currently before the Supreme Court.
The district court based its decision on the fact that the CDC’s order terminating Title 42 did not go through a public notice-and-comment process under the Administrative Procedure Act – even though the original Title 42 policy itself did not go through any such notice-and-comment process. While this ruling in Arizona v. CDC is a setback in the fight to fully end Trump’s Title 42 program and restore asylum, it is far from over: Biden’s Department of Justice should swiftly seek an emergency stay pending its appeal of this case to prevent the preliminary injunction blocking the May 23rd wind-down from taking effect.
As we know, first the Trump Administration and then the Biden Administration have used the COVID-19 pandemic as pretext to justify gutting our asylum system using Title 42, which has been condemned by public health, legal and human rights advocates. Earlier this month, Justice Action Center and the Tulane Immigrant Rights Law Clinic co-authored this amicus brief in the Arizona case signed by 58 groups, highlighting horrific consequences suffered by people denied their right to seek safety due to Title 42, to argue that ending the program is in the public interest.
Individual state attorneys general should not be allowed to thwart the will of the voters, and the Biden Administration must use all legal tools at its disposal to challenge this ruling and similar red state litigation: Failure to do so would put more lives at risk of immeasurable trauma and danger, reflect a lack of commitment to restoring the fair and humane immigration system Biden campaigned on, and further embolden red states to subvert our judicial and democratic processes to advance their anti-immigrant agendas.”