15 GOP-led states seek to maintain Title 42

Representatives from 15 states have asked a federal judge to allow them to intervene to maintain Title 42, the pandemic-era immigration policy that allowed the government to swiftly expel incoming migrants from Mexico, The New York Times reports.

The group filed the motion to intervene on Monday, seeking to delay a court order issued last week that is set to discontinue the policy on Dec. 21. Title 42, a holdover from the Trump administration, was intended to control the spread of COVID-19. However, despite previous attempts to end it, the Biden administration continued to rely on the policy to cope with the growing number of asylum-seekers crossing the southern border.

On Nov. 15, Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found that the policy was "arbitrary and capricious" and violated federal laws. Sullivan concluded that the order failed to control the spread of COVID, and government agencies failed to consider alternative options to denying asylum seekers entry. Sullivan also granted the Biden administration's request for a five-week pause to allow them to comply with the order.

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In the request to intervene, the Republican-led states said that listing the policy would lead to an influx of asylum-seekers, which would "directly harm" them.

"Because invalidation of the Title 42 Orders will directly harm the States, they now seek to intervene to offer a defense of the Title 42 policy so that its validity can be resolved on the merits, rather than through strategic surrender," the states said in their filing Monday, per CNN.