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Dec. 19 (UPI) -- The Supreme Court on Monday temporarily halted Wednesday's expiration of a Trump-era immigration rule that bars entry to the United States of both migrants and asylum seekers. The brief order issued by Chief Justice John Roberts prevents Title 42 from expiring on Wednesday as scheduled last month by a U.S. district judge.
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Roberts did not weigh in on the merits of the case, but granted the stay to permit the justices more time to consider the request to intervene made by 19 Republican state attorney generals against November's ruling.
The Biden administration has until Tuesday 5 p.m to respond, Roberts said.
Title 42 was issued March 2020 by then-President Donald Trump as a U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention health measure to stymie the spread of COVID-19 during the pandemic. The rule has been used some 2.5 million times, the vast majority under the administration of President Joe Biden, which has also sought for it to be maintained.
Republican-led states have repeatedly fought to keep the rule in place to stop migrants from entering the county while human rights and immigration advocates accuse Title 42 of inhumanly violating asylum seekers' rights to seek protection under U.S. and international law.
"There is no legal justification for keeping Title 42 in place," the American Civil Liberties Union said via Twitter following Roberts' order on Monday. "It's an inhumane policy that misuses public health to unjustly -- and unlawfully -- expel asylum seekers."
"Title 42 is illegal. It's inhumane," said the Center for Gender and Refuge Studies on Twitter. "Now a group of anti-immigrant politicians is fighting tooth and nail to preserve it. That is shameful."
The ACLU and the CGRS are among the organizations that have been seeking to repeal Title 42 since it was first enacted and had filed a lawsuit against the rule in July of 2021 after negotiations with the Biden administration on the measure failed.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan sided with the advocates and reluctantly gave the Biden administration five weeks that end Wednesday to lift the rule, which attracted the appeal from 19 Republican-led states.
The Supreme Court was then asked by the Republican attorneys general to intervene after a federal appeals court rejected their case on Friday.
"Getting rid of Title 42 will recklessly and needlessly endanger more Americans and migrants by exacerbating the catastrophe that is occurring at our southern border," Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said in a statement Monday after having filed an emergency stay application with the high court.
Politicians in Texas, who are among the most vocal opponents to Title 42, cheered Roberts' ruling Monday as a move in the right direction.
"The fight to keep Title 42 in place continues," Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton tweeted. "I will continue to do everything I can in court to ensure our border is secure."
Following Roberts' order, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that Title 42 will remain in effect and that migrants and asylum seekers who attempt to enter the United States will continue to be expelled to Mexico.
"While this state of the litigation proceeds, we will continue our preparations to manage the border in a safe, orderly and humane way when the Title 42 public health order lifts," it said in a statement.
The White House used the order Monday to call on Congress, and in particular Republican lawmakers, to heed the Biden administration's request for more border funds and to pass laws it says will improve the situation at the U.S. southern border.
"If Republicans in Congress are serious about securing the border, if they are serious about the challenges that we're currently seeing, they should be able to get involved here and make sure that the men and women of the Department of Homeland Security have the resources they need," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Monday.
She added that the Biden administration has deployed a historic high of 23,000 border agents among other resources to stop irregular immigration.
The litigation over Title 42 also comes days after a U.S. district judge on Thursday stopped the Biden administration from ending the controversial Trump-era policy that forces asylum seekers to wait for their court dates in Mexico.
