Two days ago I wrote about the brewing battle between (1) one district court's national injunction against the lifting of Title 42 and (2) another district court's purported vacatur of Title 42. Later that day there was another development. Judge Sullivan of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued this minute order in the docket:
MINUTE ORDER granting 166 Unopposed Emergency Motion for Temporary Stay of the Court's November 15, 2022 Order ("Emergency Mot."). The government states that "[t]he requested temporary stay… is not for the pendency of appeal but rather for only a temporary period." Emergency Mot., ECF No. 166 at 3. The government further states that "DHS requires a short period of time to prepare for the transition from Title 42 to Title 8 processing, given the need to resolve resource and logistical issues that it was unable to address in advance without knowing precisely when currently operative August 2021 Title 42 order would end. Cf. 87 Fed. Reg. at 19,95456 (setting effective date of Termination Order for 52 days from date of issuance to, among other things, provide DHS with additional time to ready operational plans). During this period of time, DHS will need to move additional resources to the border and coordinate with stakeholders, including non-governmental organizations and state and local governments, to help prepare for the transition to Title 8 processing. This transition period is critical to ensuring that DHS can continue to carry out its mission to secure the Nation's borders and to conduct its border operations in an orderly fashion. See, e.g., AARP v. EEOC, 292 F. Supp. 3d 238, 241 (D.D.C. 2017) (staying effective date of vacatur order for about one year to avoid the potential for disruption); NAACP v. Trump, 298 F. Supp. 3d 209, 24445 (D.D.C. 2018) (staying vacatur order for 90 days to avoid disruption)." Id. Plaintiffs do not oppose the motion. Pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 59 and 60, the Court's inherent authority, and in view of the lack of opposition by Plaintiffs, the government's representation that the request for a temporary stay is not for the pendency of appeal, but rather to enable the government to make preparations to implement the Court's Order, the Court, WITH GREAT RELUCTANCE, grants the request. The Court's November 15, 2022 Order is stayed for five weeks, from November 15, 2022 to December 20, 2022. The Order will take effect at midnight on December 21, 2022. Signed by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan on 11/16/2022. (lcegs1)
A number of things about this are interesting, but let me highlight three:
