US court keeps asylum limits in place for now

The Supreme Court of the United States decided on Tuesday to leave in place for now a pandemic-era order allowing US officials to rapidly expel migrants caught at the border with Mexico.

The court said it would hear arguments over the policy in its February session. A final ruling is expected by June.

Title 42, a World War II-era health measure, was put in place by then-president Donald Trump at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It allows border officials to automatically turn away migrants who may have been infected by the virus.

The 5-4 court ruling is bound to come as a big blow to tens of thousands of migrants who are gathering at the border in Mexico hoping for the end of the policy to enter the US.

Officials in El Paso, Texas, have estimated that in anticipation of the expiration of Title 42, as many as 20,000 migrants have been waiting at the southern border. It is estimated that as many as 5,000 migrants could enter El Paso alone with the end of Title 42.

The US Border Patrol's central processing center in El Paso has a capacity of processing about 1,400 migrants a day. It was erecting a tent larger than a football field as an overflow process center.

Under Title 42, border officials turned away more than 2 million migrants in fiscal year 2022. About 40 percent of these migrants had made repeated attempts to enter.

The administration of US President Joe Biden sought to end the pandemic-related policy. However, 19 Republican-led states, including Texas, filed an emergency application to the Supreme Court to stop the administration from ending Title 42.

The White House said it would comply with the order.

"Today's order gives Republicans in Congress plenty of time to move past political finger-pointing and join their Democratic colleagues in solving the challenge at our border by passing the comprehensive reform measures and delivering the additional funds for border security that President Biden has requested," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

One of the state officials filing the application, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, said in a statement that lifting Title 42 would make the existing situation worse.

"Getting rid of Title 42 will recklessly and needlessly endanger more Americans and migrants by exacerbating the catastrophe that is occurring at our southern border," Brnovich said. "Unlawful crossings are estimated to surge from 7,000 per day to as many as 18,000."

Long journey

While lifting Title 42 would bring in large numbers of Latin American migrants seeking asylum, they face a long journey because the asylum backlog was at a historic high of more than 2 million as of November, according to recent analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

That is in sharp contrast to 10 years ago, when the asylum backlog was at 100,000.

Asylum cases are accumulating fast. The clearinghouse's data showed that in the first two months of fiscal year 2023, which started in October 2022, a total of 170,398 new cases have been recorded, doubling the total of 85,862 cases completed at the same time.

Florida, Texas and California are the top three states in the US with the most pending cases, followed by New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts.

While the migrants come from 219 countries, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, El Salvador, Venezuela and Cuba are the top countries of origin. India and Russia are the top origin countries outside of the American continent.

The average wait time for an asylum hearing is about 4.3 years nationwide. However, the longest delay is in Sterling, Virginia, where the wait time averages 6.6 years, the clearinghouse data showed.

For migrants from Chad and Tonga, the waiting time averages more than 10 years, while waiting time for migrants from Peru, Nicaragua and Colombia averages less than one year.