“Today’s ruling is a critical step in halting the Trump administration’s unprecedented and illegal attempt to expel children under the thin guise of public health.”
by Andrea Germanos, staff writer
November 18, 2020, Wednesday,
“We are thrilled that the court has enjoined this cruel policy, which has placed thousands of vulnerable refugee children in harm’s way,” said Jamie Crook, director of litigation at the Center for Gender & Refuge. (Photo: Erik McGregor/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images) A federal judge on Wednesday ordered a halt to a Trump administration directive that leaned on an unprecedented use of a federal statute to take advantage of the coronavirus crisis to justify expelling unaccompanied migrant children.
The ruling from Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia stems from class-action lawsuit filed in August by the ACLU along with the Texas Civil Rights Project, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, and Oxfam. The groups challenged what they called the administration’s “Title 42 Process,” referring to a provision of the Public Health Service Act that allows the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to—”in the interest of the public health”—seal the border to stop the entry of any communicable disease.
According to the Associated Press‘s previous reporting, that effort was pushed by the administration’s right-wing immigration architect Stephen Miller and was resisted by CDC officials who were overruled by Vice President Mike Pence.
In their lawsuit, the rights groups called the “administration’s use of Title 42… a transparent end-run around Congress’s considered decision to provide protection to children and others fleeing danger even where communicable disease is a concern—and to address that concern through testing and quarantines, not deportations.”
VICTORY: A court blocked the dangerous and illegal deportation of unaccompanied kids without any due process under the Trump administration's “Title 42” policy, which closed the border to asylum seekers.
At least 13,000 unaccompanied kids were already subjected to the policy.
— ACLU (@ACLU) November 18, 2020
The preliminary injunction was welcomed by the other groups in the filing.
“We are thrilled that the court has enjoined this cruel policy, which has placed thousands of vulnerable refugee children in harm’s way,” said Jamie Crook, director of litigation at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies. “Today’s ruling affirms that the Trump administration cannot use the pandemic as a pretext to flout its legal obligations to children fleeing persecution.”
Karla Marisol Vargas, senior attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, similarly applauded the injunction.
“It has taken months and a suit against the government to confirm what we already knew: the Trump administration cannot weaponize a pandemic to destroy long established protections for children with a shadow system of zero-accountability,” Vargas said. “We will continue to keep this administration, and the next, in check.”
Just before the November 3 election, a spokesperson for the Joe Biden campaign told CBS News that the incoming administration “would direct the CDC and DHS to review this policy and make the appropriate changes to ensure that people have the ability to submit their asylum claims while ensuring that we are taking the appropriate Covid-19 safety precautions, as guided by the science and public health experts.”
This article published by Common Dreams on November 18, 2020, here…
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