President Joe Biden’s administration announced on April 1 that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention would end on May 23 the public health order known as Title 42, which allows for the immediate expulsion of migrants arriving at the border and was first implemented in March 2020 under then-President Donald Trump.
That plan is likely now on hold as a federal judge indicated Monday that he would soon issue a temporary restraining order to block the Biden administration from ending the Title 42 policy, The Daily Wire reported.
That impending ruling from the judge came in response to a lawsuit filed against the administration by several Republican-led states across the nation that sought to preserve the public health order that, in essence, is the only policy that remains an obstacle to the fully “open borders” agenda that Biden has attempted to implement.
Not so fast, judge says
The decision to block President Biden’s plan to scrap the Title 42 policy in May came from a federal judge in Louisiana, U.S. District Judge Robert Summerhays, who is overseeing the lawsuit initially brought by three GOP-led states — Missouri, Louisiana, and Arizona.
“The Court discussed the Motion for Temporary Restraining Order [ECF No. 24] filed by Plaintiffs,” the judge wrote in a one-page order following a status conference meeting Monday. “For the reasons stated on the record, the Court announced its intent to grant the motion. The parties will confer regarding the specific terms to be contained in the Temporary Restraining Order and attempt to reach agreement.”
That decision was subsequently heralded by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who had played a key role in leading the challenge against the Biden administration’s announced ending of Title 42.
“In a lawsuit originally filed by Missouri, Louisiana, and Arizona, our Office just obtained a temporary restraining order to keep Title 42 in place,” Schmitt tweeted Monday afternoon. “This is a huge victory for border security, but the fight continues on.”
A blessing and a curse all in one
According to Politico, the judge’s order presented something of a mixed bag of both good and bad for President Biden and his administration.
On the one hand, the decision was obviously frustrating as it stymies Biden’s attempt to make good on a campaign promise to end Title 42, something that his leftist base and open borders immigration advocates had been clamoring for since he first entered office last year.
However, the ruling also provides the White House a bit of relief from the mounting pressure it has received from Republicans and even some Democrats and media figures about the strong likelihood of an unmanageable surge of illegal immigration across the southern border once that policy is lifted.
What will Biden do now?
Politico further noted that the Biden White House had been on the verge of launching a sort of public relations blitz to provide talking points to allies and details to detractors of a planned response to the expected migrant surge in an effort to solidify support and address the critiques of the ending of Title 42.
That effort has now been scrambled, and it remains to be seen if Biden’s team intends to fight back against the court order or use it as cover and an excuse to avoid following through on a clearly political move fraught with controversy and a very real threat of backfiring on the president and his fellow Democrats.
