At last, a federal judge has articulated a fact that’s been in plain view for years: The Trump administration’s implementation of the so-called Title 42 order, expelling migrants without due process, had little to do with pandemic control and everything to do with blocking their legal right to seek asylum. Now the pressing question is what to do since a virtual wall based on a hollow pretext may well be coming down.
In an order and related memo on Tuesday, Judge Emmet Sullivan of the D.C. District Court eviscerated the government’s dubious rationalizations, pointing out that the administration had more reasonable approaches to control COVID than a blanket asylum prohibition it arbitrarily made exceptions to, and that it failed to take into account migrants’ rights. In other words, the government can’t just wave away binding humanitarian responsibilities — which are themselves written into statute — by leaning on other parts of the law.
As welcome as this ruling is, it brings with it looming logistical problems that must be resolved to avoid a further meltdown of the immigration court system. Sullivan has granted a request for a stay of the order until Dec. 21, meaning the administration has five weeks to figure out how to process what will be a significant influx of asylum seekers, driven in part by the bottleneck the government itself created.
