US Republicans push to keep strict Covid border laws

Fifteen US states are fighting to retain border restrictions introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic after a judge ruled that the policy was unlawful.

The Title 42 restrictions, introduced by President Donald Trump in 2020, “allowed authorities to severely restrict asylum-seekers” attempting to enter the country, said NBC News. However, US district judge Emmet Sullivan “sided with the American Civil Liberties Union and other immigration advocates” against the policy, claiming the rules were no longer used to protect public health but for border enforcement.

In his verdict, Sullivan said the policy “forced migrants to return to countries where some of them might face grave danger”, but there are now fears “thousands more people” will make their way to cross the US southern border, said The New York Times (NYT).

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The 15 states, which are Republican-led, made a motion to intervene with a federal judge on Monday night arguing that an increased flow of migrants would “impose financial burdens” on whichever states they end up in. Title 42 has allowed states on the southern border to “turn back migrants at the border before they could make asylum claims”, wrote NBC News. It has been used “2.4 million times over the course of more than two and a half years”, said Axios.

The intervening states said President Joe Biden had admitted “surrender’’ in allowing Title 42 to be lifted. But “it is not clear that the Biden administration does not plan to appeal the order”, said the NYT, after it was able to secure a “delay in its implementation” until 21 December.

With Title 42, there could be “18,000 people crossing the border per day”, wrote the New York Post, “almost triple current levels”. It said that the majority of people crossing the border originate from “Colombia, Venezuela and other areas of central and South America”.

American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Lee Gelernt said it was “hypocritical” of the appealing states to “demand Covid-19 restrictions for asylum seekers when they had opposed such restrictions in their own states in the past”, said the NYT.