As if the southern border were not experiencing enough of a crisis with the failures of the Biden administration and record-high border crossings, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan on Tuesday blocked the use of Title 42 to expel migrants at the border.
NEW: A federal judge in Washington D.C. has blocked the use of Title 42 -- an expansive immigration policy that allowed border agents to turn back more than 2 million migrants.
— Hamed Aleaziz (@Haleaziz) November 15, 2022
Big news. pic.twitter.com/yUQXQRoaZS
As reporting from The Hill highlighted, Judge Sullivan found that Title 42 violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), "because 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," he also wrote.
Judge Sullivan's decision comes after a lawsuit was brought by the ACLU, which celebrated the decision in a statement from Lee Gelernt, one of the attorneys. "Title 42 has caused grave harm to thousands of desperate asylum seekers. The ruling puts an end to a policy that misused the public laws as a pretext to abandon our commitment to provide a hearing to those fleeing danger," he said.
There's no word in such a statement about how the United States is already facing a border crisis, though.
Fox News' Bill Melugin, who often reports from the border, noted that "multiple Border Patrol sources" are expected even more crossings, on top of what they're already experiencing.
Already hearing from multiple Border Patrol sources that they will be expecting a significant surge/rush of migrants at the border once word gets around about this order, on top of numbers that are already at all times highs even with Title 42 in place.
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) November 15, 2022
Judge Sullivan's decision comes after Julio covered, also on Tuesday, that Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) has declared there is an invasion at the U.S.-Mexico border on Tuesday, invoking the "Invasion Clauses of the U.S. and Texas Constitutions."
Stunningly, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas continues to claim that "yes" the border is secured, as recently as earlier on Tuesday when testifying before Congress.