Supreme Court cancels oral arguments on rescinding Title 42

Feb. 17 (UPI) -- The Supreme Court has scrubbed next month's opening arguments by the Biden administration to rescind Title 42 -- a contentious pandemic-era policy that allows for illegal migrants at the southern U.S. border to be quickly expelled with no chance for asylum.

The court gave no explanation for Thursday's calendar change, and it was unclear whether arguments in the Title 42 case would ever be rescheduled.

In late January, the Biden administration extended the COVID-19 emergency to May 11 -- which set the stage for the Trump-era policy to expire on its own and ultimately make the action before the nation's high court moot, the government said in a previous filing.

Government lawyers had been expecting to go before the nine justices on March 1 and argue that the Trump-era order was no longer needed to control the virus, while attorneys for a handful of Republican-led states were preparing to defend the law to keep it on the books.

The policy, enacted in March 2020 when the pandemic was first declared, has led to more than 2.6 million deportations from U.S. states that border Mexico, with federal health officials facing pressure to uphold the policy despite skepticism over whether the law was indeed protecting the public's health.

After Biden took office in January 2021, he initially left Title 42 in place, but then moved to scuttle the policy in spring of 2022 because pandemic conditions around the country had vastly improved. But his actions prompted a lawsuit by Republican officials in which a federal judge ruled in Title 42's favor.

Later in November, another federal judge in a separate lawsuit determined Title 42 was illegal, citing its impact on migrants. This would have ended the policy last December, but the Supreme Court halted the lower court ruling after another Republican appeal, which kept the law from expiring late last year.

While Biden has publicly assailed the Trump-era policy, the administration has continued ti implement the law to mitigate migrant crossings along the southern U.S. border throughout his term.

Last month the president announced new immigration rules, which included a plan to accept up to 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, while others stopped at the southern border would be expelled to Mexico, which had cut a deal with Washington to take in 30,000 migrants per month.

That plan also included continued denial of entry under Title 42 to discourage migrants from making their way to the border.