Supreme Court delays end of Title 42 immigration rule

The Supreme Court on Monday delayed the termination of the Title 42 immigration rule that was set to expire this week.

Chief Justice John Roberts issued the temporary hold in response to an appeal from Republican-led states seeking to keep the order in place, according to NBC News. Roberts gave the Department of Homeland Security, which had sought to end the order, until 5 p.m. on Tuesday to respond to the Republican appeal, per the New York Post.

An appeals court had previously rejected the bid from 19 Republican states to halt the order imposed by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in mid-November, paving the way for the order's termination.

Title 42 is a COVID-era border enforcement order that allowed authorities to quickly deport migrants they apprehended should they hail from a country known to host a communicable disease. Republicans have warned that the order's termination would lead to a rising tide of illegal migrants, with which already strained border agencies would be ill-equipped to deal.

An estimated 2.5 million migrants have been removed under the order since its implementation. Meanwhile, border officials have had to combat already record-high migration numbers, with 2.4 million migrants crossing in fiscal year 2022 alone and roughly 4 million doing so since President Joe Biden took office in January of 2021. Those figures are expected to rise further should the Title 42 border enforcement mechanism render authorities unable to swiftly remove border crossers.

The White House had on Monday denied the end of the order would lead to an open borders scenario.

At least one Republican, however, opined that stopping the end of Title 42 would not address the root of the problem. Appearing on the "Just the News, No Noise" television show on Monday, Indiana Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita asserted that "[t]he Biden administration is lawless; they are not enforcing the border at all, US 42 or not."

"So maybe there's an uptick increase if 42 was suspended," he continued. "But really, the problem is that we have a rogue administration, who is fundamentally against American exceptionalism and therefore against America, because they do not believe in the rule of law."

"This idea that we need some kind of mass amnesty or comprehensive immigration reform, as easy as that argument was to see coming, is separate and apart," Rokita went on. "It's apples and oranges. I don't care if you think the law, our laws are good, bad or indifferent. They are to be followed."