A federal judge from the District of Columbia on Thursday ordered the government chaired by Joe Biden to stop rejecting families with children at the border without allowing them to apply for asylum under
the cover of Title 42,
considering it illegal to use that measure implemented in 2020 for the coronavirus pandemic to deny that right to immigrants.
Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled that due to "the wide availability of tests, vaccines and other minimization measures," he is not "convinced that transmission of COVID-19 during processing at the border cannot be significantly mitigated."
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He added that expelling asylum seekers denies them "the opportunity to seek the humanitarian benefits" offered by US law.
Sullivan in any case postponed the entry into force of his order for two weeks to give the Government time to adapt or appeal the sentence.
[Thousands of migrant minors are crammed into "emergency" shelters with little supervision and little care]
The decision is the result of a lawsuit filed by a group of asylum-seeking families through the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), against the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, and other federal government officials.
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The public health order known as Title 42 was approved by former President Donald Trump in March 2020 to deny the right of asylum to the vast majority of migrants due to the risk of transmission of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Biden government has continued to use this policy to expel hundreds of thousands of migrants to Mexico, although it exempted unaccompanied minors.
63% of all migrants intercepted at the border have been expelled expeditiously and without the right to seek asylum under Title 42, in total,
more than 111,000 migrants,
most of them adults traveling alone, although this figure also includes families