Biden administration asks federal judge to deny request to immediately block end of Title 42

CNN —

The Biden administration told a federal judge in Louisiana on Friday that the court should deny a request from more than 20 states to immediately block the end of a Trump-era pandemic restriction on the US-Mexico border.

In a court filing, the Justice Department argued: Plaintiffs fail to show that they face a significant, non-speculative threat of injury. In fact, they cannot. DHS continues to prioritize Title 42 expulsions to the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras.

The administration is on track to end the public health authority, known as Title 42, on May 23, but in the interim, border authorities are still allowed to turn migrants away at the US-Mexico border.

Twenty-one states argued this week that the administration had begun releasing migrants into the US as authorities have the discretion to do and asked the court to intervene. Texas also filed a separate lawsuit Friday against the Biden administration to end Title 42. The Justice Department pushed back on that claim, saying that while it was deferring to traditional immigration protocols in some cases, numbers remain small.