Court authorizes U.S. border officials to continue deporting migrant families

A court of appeal On Thursday, suspended an order from a federal judge that would have barred the Biden administration from using a border policy in the era of the pandemic to deport migrant families with little or no due process.

The Federal judge’s order suspended by the DC Court of Appeals would have required the Biden administration to treat all migrant families with children under U.S. immigration laws, which allow them to seek asylum or other forms of humanitarian refuge.

At the center of the court case is a public health authority, colloquially known as Title 42, which US border officials have used to deport hundreds of thousands of migrants without court hearings or asylum checks since March 2020. , when the Trump administration adopted the policy.

The Biden administration has firmly defended the Trump-era emergency policy, arguing that it is necessary to prevent coronavirus outbreaks inside migrant detention facilities. Unlike the Trump administration, the Biden administration did not use Title 42 to deport unaccompanied migrant children.

During President Biden’s tenure, US authorities along the southern border used Title 42 to deport most single adult migrants. However, they expelled lower percentages of families than under the Trump administration, largely due to Mexico’s reluctance to accept young non-Mexican children.

In August, for example, US border officials met 86,000 migrant parents and children traveling with their families. About 80% of them were treated under immigration law and allowed to seek refuge in the United States, while the rest were deported under Title 42, according to customs and law data. border protection.

U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan has repeatedly found that the 19th-century public health law cited by the government did not allow the rapid deportation of migrants and asylum seekers.

On September 16, Sullivan ordered the government to stop deporting migrant parents and children traveling with families, but suspended his order for 14 days. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday granted the Biden administration a request to stay Sullivan’s order while it considers the government’s appeal.

Since the start of the pandemic, migrant advocates have condemned the deportations, arguing they violate US asylum laws. But outcry over Title 42 has escalated in recent days as the Biden administration used politics to deport thousands of Haitians encountered along the southern border.

As of Thursday morning, the United States had carried out 50 deportation flights to Haiti, deporting 5,400 migrants in just 11 days, according to Department of Homeland Security data shared with CBS News.

Lee Gelernt, the attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union who filed a title 42 evictions lawsuit, said the DC Circuit decision was disappointing, but called it “just a first step in the litigation on appeal “.

“Nothing prevents the Biden administration from immediately repealing this horrible Trump-era policy,” Gelernt added. “If the administration makes the political calculation that if it acts inhumanely now, it can act more humanely later, this calculation is wrong and of little comfort to the families who are sent to Haiti or brutalized in Mexico in this regard. moment.