Migrants are picked up by Border Patrol after hundreds of people crossed the Rio Grande to seek asylum in the U.S. last week., our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., denied a request from 19 Republican-led states, including Texas, that had asked the three-judge panel to delay lifting the order — known as Title 42 — on Dec. 21. The judges said the states’ request came too late in the process. The states could appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Biden administration said it would meet the Dec. 21 deadline, but it also appealed Sullivan’s ruling, saying it disagreed that Title 42’s initial implementation was illegal. Immigration officials have used the health order more than 2 million times to expel migrants, many of whom have been removed multiple times after making repeated attempts to enter the U.S. Under Title 42, the recidivism rate — the percentage of people apprehended more than once by a Border Patrol agent — has increased from 7% to 27% since fiscal year 2019.