Supreme Court orders Title 42 border restrictions to remain in place

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the controversial Trump-era Title 42 border policy to remain in place for the time being.

In a 5-4 vote, the high court reversed an order from a federal judge in Washington, D.C., who ruled last month that the border policy must end.

The court’s ruling comes in response to an emergency request filed by 19 Republican state attorneys general asking to maintain the policy, which was scheduled to expire this week.

Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch joined all of the Supreme Court’s liberal justices in siding against the order allowing Title 42 to stay in effect.

Gorsuch said in a dissenting opinion that “the current border crisis is not a COVID crisis.”

“And courts should not be in the business of perpetuating administrative edicts designed for one emergency only because elected officials have failed to address a different emergency,” he wrote. “We are a court of law, not policymakers of last resort.”