Biden administration to appeal court’s ruling on roll back of Title 42

The Biden administration will appeal a ruling by a federal judge that temporarily stopped the roll back of Title 42, according to a statement from the White House released Friday.

“The Administration disagrees with the court’s ruling, and the Department of Justice has announced that it will appeal this decision,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, according to the statement.

The statement from Jean-Pierre came hours after U.S. District Court Judge Robert Summerhays stopped the administration from ending Title 42, a Trump-era border management policy that allows migrants to be expelled quickly from the border under pandemic conditions.

The Louisiana judge granted a preliminary injunction to a group of Republican state attorneys general who opposed the rollback.

Summerhays argued that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) bypassed a process that allows for input from the public on the decision to rescind Title 42.

Summerhays continued that the plaintiffs demonstrated harm that would result from the rollback, adding, “despite the impact of the order on the states, they were not able to protect their interest by participating in the notice-and-comment process.”

In the White House statement, Jean-Pierre argued that the authority to determine public health policy should reside with the CDC.

“The authority to set public health policy nationally should rest with the Centers for Disease Control, not with a single district court. However, in compliance with the court’s injunction, the Biden Administration will continue to enforce the CDC’s 2020 Title 42 public health authority pending the appeal.”

She added that “this means that migrants who attempt to enter the United States unlawfully will be subject to expulsion under Title 42, as well as immigration consequences such as removal under Title 8.”

The Friday ruling from Summerhays came just days before the rollback was set to take place on May 23. The Biden administration announced that it would rescind Title 42 in early April, a decision that drew criticism from both sides of the aisle.

At the time, moderate Democrats including Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) opposed the decision. Manchin called it “frightening.”

Immigration restrictionists panned the rescission as taking away a final defense against “mass migration.”