Biden Lawyers Ask Supreme Court to Lift Asylum Limits—After the Holidays

President Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday night asked the Supreme Court to keep Title 42—a restrictive Trump-era immigration policy that applies to the U.S.-Mexico border—in place until after the holidays are over. Title 42, an emergency health order put in place at the start of the pandemic, was scheduled to expire at midnight on Wednesday, but was frozen by Chief Justice John G. Roberts on Monday after an Arizona-led coalition of 19 conservative states asked the high court to halt the process. Roberts gave the White House a Tuesday deadline to respond. In a court filing, government lawyers acknowledged that ending the policy would “likely lead to disruption and a temporary increase in unlawful border crossings,” but argued that “the solution to that immigration problem cannot be to extend indefinitely a public health measure that all now acknowledge has outlived its public health justification.” The extension would allow the government to assemble more resources at the southern border to respond to the end of Title 42, the filing said.