VICTORIA, Texas (CN) — Texas sued the Biden administration Friday, seeking an injunction to stop it from ending Title 42, a pandemic-related health policy the Department of Homeland Security has used to quickly expel millions of undocumented immigrants.
“The Biden administration’s disastrous open border policies and its confusing and haphazard Covid-19 response have combined to create a humanitarian and public safety crisis on our southern border. 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,” the first paragraph of the 24-page lawsuit states.
Under pressure from then-President Donald Trump in March 2020 as the coronavirus triggered business closures and stay-at-home directives throughout the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention invoked Title 42, part of the Public Health Services Act of 1944, which authorizes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to prohibit entry into the U.S. of persons and property it determines will increase the danger and spread of a communicable disease.
President Joe Biden kept Title 42 in place despite condemnation from immigrant advocates who claim it denies people due process and access to the U.S. asylum system in contravention of international accords. Homeland Security has invoked it 1.7 million times to expel immigrants to Mexico or their home countries, many of them multiple times after they reentered the country.
Biden moved to end the program on April 1 via a termination order from CDC Director Rochelle Walensky. It is set to take effect May 23.
Justifying the move, Walensky said there was no longer a serious danger noncitizens entering the country will result in the transmission of Covid-19, citing widespread availability of Covid tests, an increased number of people around the world who are fully vaccinated against the respiratory illness and wider availability of Covid treatments.
As it has argued in several other lawsuits challenging the Biden administration’s immigration policies, Texas claims rescinding Title 42 will increase the number of noncitizens in the state, raising its health care and education costs because undocumented immigrants are eligible for emergency Medicaid services, and their children qualify for health care under the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program and can attend public schools.
The lawsuit comes days after DHS released a report showing immigrant apprehensions at the Southwest border are at a 22-year high, driven by an increase in arrivals of people from Cuba, Nicaragua, Columbia and Ukraine.
To pressure Biden not to terminate Title 42, Texas Governor Greg Abbott is sending busloads of immigrants to Washington, D.C.
“By busing migrants to Washington, D.C., Texas is sending a clear message: we should not have to bear the burden of the federal government's inaction to secure the border, and the Lone Star State will do whatever it takes to keep Texans safe,” Abbott said Friday in a statement announcing the10th bus full of immigrants has arrived in the nation’s capital from Texas.
Starting April 8, Abbott also dispatched Texas state police to do safety inspections on commercial vehicles immediately after the drivers had pulled out of U.S. Customs and Border Protection checkpoints at ports of entry. Abbott – a Republican running for his third term as governor – ended the vehicle inspections April 15 after signing memos of understanding with the governors of the four Mexican states that border Texas.
The governors agreed to beef up law enforcement near the border to try to prevent immigrants without papers from crossing the Rio Grande into Texas.
Though Abbott said the state’s vehicle inspections were meant to stop illicit drugs and immigrants from being smuggled into Texas, the more than 4,100 searches by state troopers turned up no drugs, weapons or any contraband, the Texas Tribune reported, citing data released by the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Texas claims in its lawsuit the Biden administration did not put the Title 42 termination order through a notice-and-comment process, allowing the public to weigh in, as required for substantive rules by the Administrative Procedure Act. It also claims the termination order is arbitrary “because it was not the product of reasoned decision-making.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the lawsuit in Victoria federal court, ensuring it will be assigned to U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton, a Trump appointee who has already ruled in favor of Texas in two challenges to Biden’s deportation policies. Tipton is the only judge assigned civil cases in Victoria.
Three other Republican-controlled states – Arizona, Louisiana and Missouri – sued over the planned rescission of Title 42 on April 3. Ten days later, an amended complaint added the other red states of West Virginia, South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Wyoming, Georgia, Alabama, Alaska, Utah, Tennessee, Ohio, Idaho, Arkansas, Nebraska, Montana, Oklahoma and Kentucky as plaintiffs.
U.S. District Judge Robert Summerhays, a Trump appointee, announced in a hearing Monday he plans to issue a temporary restraining order directing Biden to keep Title 42 in place.
"The parties will confer regarding the specific terms to be contained in the Temporary Restraining Order and attempt to reach agreement," a docket entry states.
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