Attorney General Paxton has joined a multistate coalition urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower court’s decision to strike down Title 42, which will leave the already wide-open southern border even more exposed.
A district court judge in Washington, DC struck down Title 42, a Trump-era rule that allows the rapid expulsion of aliens who pose a public health risk. When the Biden Administration announced its intention to abandon its defense of Title 42, the multistate coalition tried to intervene to allow the states to continue to defend this important policy despite the Biden Administration’s dereliction of duty. The district court judge refused to rule on the motion, so the coalition appealed, urging the higher court to stay the district court’s ruling.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia denied the motion to intervene late last week. Now, the coalition is petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the district court’s ruling and stop the scheduled termination of Title 42 on December 21.
Allowing Title 42 to expire will only lead to increased chaos on our southern border and a massive influx of illegal aliens, as the brief notes: “[F]ailure to grant a stay here will inflict massive irreparable harms on the States, particularly as the States ‘bear[] many of the consequences of unlawful immigration.’ Indeed, even California Governor Gavin Newsom recently declared that the termination of Title 42 will ‘break[]’ California’s ability to handle the influx. That termination of Title 42 will cause enormous challenges is thus a view shared even by Federal Respondents’ own lawyers and the Administration’s most ardent supporters.”
Separate from this case, the Biden Administration had previously attempted to end Title 42, and Attorney General Paxton sued to stop its efforts and won. By joining the multistate coalition, Attorney General Paxton seeks to protect that earlier court victory.
To read the full brief, click here.