Judge strikes down Title 42 migrant expulsion policy 

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked Title 42, the Trump-era policy that allowed U.S. border authorities to expel thousands of migrants under the pretext of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington, D.C. wrote in a 49-page opinion that the policy was “arbitrary and capricious,” claiming it violated federal regulatory law.  

Title 42 was put in place by President Donald Trump’s administration in March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic was starting. According to the policy, officials could rapidly expel migrants without letting them seek asylum to prevent the spread of the virus within the U.S. 

The Biden Administration had been relying on Title 42 to deal with the record-breaking number of migrants that have been crossing the border over the past year. More than two million migrants have been expelled under the policy. 

While the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the order was no longer needed, a Louisiana-based federal judge ruled in May that the Biden administration could not end the policy in response to a lawsuit by two dozen states.

Sullivan claimed the policy violated federal law regulations known as the Administrative Procedure Act. The judge said that the CDC “failed to adequately consider alternatives and the policy did not rationally serve its stated purpose.”

“It is unreasonable for the CDC to assume that it can ignore the consequences of any actions it chooses to take in the pursuit of fulfilling its goals, particularly when those actions included the extraordinary decision to suspend the codified procedural and substantive rights of noncitizens seeking safe harbor,” Sullivan wrote.