Idaho joins lawsuit challenging end of Trump administration’s COVID-19 border policy
Idaho will join a lawsuit challenging the termination of a federal policy that slowed immigration into the U.S. during the coronavirus pandemic, Republican state leaders announced Tuesday.
Idaho Gov. Brad Little and Attorney General Lawrence Wasden are adding Idaho to a list of states attempting to block the termination next month of Title 42. The Trump administration’s pandemic border policy allows the government to immediately turn away migrants at the border, including those seeking asylum, from countries where COVID-19 is present.
After May 23, the government again plans to detain migrants before they’re deported or released for asylum, raising the potential for overcrowding at border facilities as an expected surge arrives.
This month, Republicans in Arizona, Louisiana and Missouri filed a petition asking a district court to vacate the Biden administration order terminating Title 42. Idaho and other states were invited to join the lawsuit on April 5.
“The policy kept tens of thousands of illegal immigrants from crossing the border,” Little said in a news release. “Idaho’s participation in this multistate lawsuit reinforces the fact that border security is interconnected to the health and safety of American citizens.”
Little last month launched committees to study a “growing drug threat” in Idaho, which the governor attributed to a “loose” U.S.-Mexico border.
Wasden said the move by Biden’s administration to terminate the Trump administration policy is “federal rulemaking that’s taken the place of congressional lawmaking.” Congress has the constitutional authority to enact immigration laws.
“This suit is yet another example of states being forced to take action because Congress continues to refuse to address an issue that should be its priority,” Wasden said in a news release. “The Constitution expressly assigns to Congress responsibility for immigration, but members of Congress have — for years — failed to act. In joining this suit, I am calling on Congress to show up and fulfill its constitutional responsibility.”
Little and Wasden are both running for reelection this year.
Department of Homeland Security officials said they expect an increase in the number of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border when the Title 42 policy is terminated. The agency will process migrants under Title 8, the “standard procedure we use to place individuals in removal proceedings,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas said in an April 1 news release.
“Nonetheless, we know that smugglers will spread misinformation to take advantage of vulnerable migrants. Let me be clear: Those unable to establish a legal basis to remain in the United States will be removed,” Mayorkas said.
