District Court Orders Biden Administration to Resume Trump’s Policy of Expelling Unaccompanied Immigrant Children Under Title 42

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Hamed Aleaziz for Buzzfeed reports on a federal court ruling last week that the Biden administration can no longer exempt unaccompanied immigrant children from the Title 42 pandemic expulsion policy. As Aleaziz explains, under the Title 42 policy originally put into place by President Trump, the United States government “immediately expels immigrants at the border, blocking them from accessing the asylum system or an immigration judge. . . . [The Biden administration] has continued to enforce the policy and defend it in court — with the exception of unaccompanied immigrant children.”  

In his order, Judge Mark Pittman of the District Court for the Northern District of Texas required the U.S. government to resume the expulsion policy. The order does not go into effect for seven days, giving the government time to appeal. 

Judge Pittman begins the order in a memorable passage:

“The Court is not blind to the current political division in this country.  Or that the division often implicates matters of federalism. Despite the division and the scorched-earth politics, the Court is baffled at this proceeding’s adversarial nature. That is, while a border state (like Texas) and the federal government may genuinely disagree whether various federal agencies are compliant with federal immigration law or what our immigration policy should be, there should be no disagreement that the current immigration policies should be focused on stopping the spread of COVID-19. Why a state and the federal government are litigating this issue—instead of working to solve it—is simply beyond the comprehension of the undersigned.”

(footnote omitted).

KJ