Former President Donald Trump’s relentless effort to push the federal judiciary to the right may be paying dividends.
A week after one of Trump’s appointees overruled the Biden administration and ended the mask mandate for interstate travel, another Trump judge has blocked the lifting of Title 42.
Title 42 was the legal policy that allowed the U.S. Border Patrol to expel illegal immigrants without a hearing. Although Title 42 has been federal law since 1944, Trump in 2020 cited the pandemic in becoming the first president to invoke its emergency provisions to stop the “introduction of communicable diseases.”
As The Free Press reported on Monday, the law has been cited in the removal of more than 1 million illegal immigrants.
President Joe Biden, however, was set to let Title 42 expire on May 23 – prompting illegal immigrants to assemble on the southern border in expectation that the policy will end.
But on Monday, according to Breitbart News, Judge Robert Summerhays in Louisiana, a Trump appointee, granted a temporary restraining order that blocks the repeal of Title 42.
The judge kept the policy in place until a Title 42-related lawsuit brought against the Biden administration by Arizona, Louisiana, and Missouri is resolved.
In their lawsuit the states asserted that lifting Title 42 would “induce a significant increase of illegal immigration into the United States,” generated by bogus claims of political asylum. The result would be “an influx of people to the border” that would drive up “expenditures on health care, education, and law enforcement,” as well as an increase in crime.
After Judge Summerhays’ ruling on Monday, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt called the decision “a critical win for border security and the rule of law,” Breitbart reported.
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry added in a Twitter post that “Biden’s reckless decision to rescind Title 42 would have flooded our already stressed southern border with illegal immigrants.”
“Fortunately, today a judge has granted our request to halt this enormous threat to our national security,” Landry added. “We will continue to ensure that citizenship means something and that those in this country illegally are not conferred greater rights than our citizens.”
The judge’s ruling also drew applause from groups that want stricter regulation of immigration.
Dan Stein, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said the judge’s decision offers “a reprieve from an even bigger self-inflicted national health and security crisis.”
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Free Press.
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