(The Center Square) – Ten days after three attorneys general sued the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over its plan to terminate the immigration-related public health authority known as Title 42, their lawsuit now includes 21 states as plaintiffs.
Arizona AG Mark Brnovich, Louisiana AG Jeff Landry, and Missouri AG Eric Schmitt sued the CDC April 4. Now, the attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming have joined them.
“What President Biden is doing by rescinding Title 42 is not humane; it is insane,” Brnovich said. “Biden is actively decriminalizing and incentivizing illegal immigration to bring in as many people as possible without any regard for the safety and well-being of Americans.”
The AGs filed an amended complaint and a motion for a preliminary injunction April 14 with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana Lafayette in Arizona v CDC. In the amended complaint, the AGs ask the court to intervene “to forestall an imminent calamity” that will ensue if Title 42 is rescinded.
Title 42 is “the only safety valve preventing this administration’s already disastrous border control policies from descending into an unmitigated catastrophe,” they argue.
The public health authority was invoked by the Trump administration to allow illegal immigrants to be quickly expelled during a public health emergency. In effect since March 2020, Brnovich says it’s “prevented over 1.7 million illegal entries into the U.S.” On April 1, the CDC announced it was terminating Title 42 on May 23.
Title 42 is considered to be the last measure in place holding back an unprecedented number of illegal immigrants from pouring into the U.S. after the Biden administration drastically altered immigration policies last year and southern border encounters totaled roughly two million people from over 150 countries. Over the past year, many attorneys general sued, arguing Biden’s immigration policies are unconstitutional and violate federal law.
With as many as 18,000 people expected to illegally cross the southern border every day once Title 42 is lifted, ending it “will inflict devastating injuries” on their states “and the entire nation,” the AGs argue.
“The Administration has presented no possible way it can to identify, quarantine, treat, or mitigate communicable disease risk given the flood of border crossings it predicts,” their complaint states.
Several AGs who visited the Texas-Mexico border earlier this year, weighed in.
Missouri AG Schmitt, who’s sued the Biden administration with Texas AG Ken Paxton, said, “Missouri has been a leader in pushing back on the Biden Administration’s failure at the border, and we filed suit against the cancellation of the ‘Remain in Mexico’ Policy and also filed suit to force the Biden Administration to build the Southwest border wall.
“If the Biden Administration won’t take proactive steps to secure our border and protect our citizenry, we certainly will.”
Kansas AG Derek Schmidt maintains Biden’s policies place an undo burden on states, including increased health care costs, treating those with COVID-19 and other illnesses.
“There’s nothing surprising” about what he witnessed while in Texas “when the federal government abdicates its responsibility to control migration in and out of the country,” Schmidt told The Center Square. “Not surprisingly, there’s always a group of bad actors who want to use immigration as a guise to enter the U.S. to do things that are unlawful and harmful.
“Every state is now a border state because of that. That includes Kansas,” he said.
Ending Title 42 “would be a disaster and further the chaos at the southwest border that is making it easier for drug cartels and human smugglers to advance their illicit practices in our country,” Florida AG Ashley Moody said. Moody, who’s also been to Texas more than once, has sued the administration more than once over it’s immigration policies.
