The Supreme Court has canceled upcoming oral arguments around the debunked Title 42 policy, dealing a significant blow to the slate of Republican states fighting the Biden administration’s attempt to end use of the public health order in May. Justices were set to hear arguments about whether GOP states have standing to sue within just a matter of days. But that has now been canceled, following a “terse entry on the court’s docket” on Thursday, The New York Times reported. It gave no explanation, the report said.

It was a positive development, though not a full win (at least for now) in terms of what the Biden administration has been seeking.

Officials had earlier in the month asked the justices to dismiss the case outright, after previously announcing that the emergency declaration tied to the novel coronavirus pandemic would be coming to an end. “The anticipated end of the public health emergency on May 11, and the resulting expiration of the operative Title 42 order, would render this case moot,” the federal government said in a filing this month. “The court’s action on Thursday indicated that it was inclined to agree and that, barring other developments, it would dismiss the case and lift a stay that had kept the measure in place,” The New York Times continued.

So the court date cancellation does bode well for the administration, but that remains subject to whatever Republicans try to scheme next. The Biden administration had tried to end use of Title 42 last December following a lower court decision, but was blocked by the Republican states. Throughout litigation, the Biden administration said it was nevertheless continuing “preparations to manage the border in a safe, orderly, and humane way when the Title 42 public health order lifts.”

“We urge Congress to use this time to provide the funds we have requested for border security and management,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said, “and advance the comprehensive immigration measures President Biden proposed on his first day in office.”

But Speaker-For-Now Kevin McCarthy has instead been engaged in his usual theatrics at our southern border. Republicans have also been purposefully disruptive, suing to block the expanded humanitarian parole program recently implemented by the Biden administration. Officials said that since the expansion of parole for Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan migrants, border crossings had plunged, and were in fact set to be the lowest in two years. Republican states are using to block the program based on the complete lie that it somehow hurts states like Alaska.

"That Alaska is trying to claim that a program allowing Cubans to enter the country legally is going to create an increase in undocumented immigrants in Alaska is fundamentally unserious," American Immigration Council’s Aaron Reichlin-Melnick told ABC News. "No person should be able to say that with a straight face. Alaska is not going to be overwhelmed by migrants—that's just reality."

But Republicans don’t need facts or reality to win their immigration cases, they need sympathetic conservative judges, and like we’ve seen since the beginning of the Biden administration, they’ve been more than happy to oblige.  

Republished with permission from Daily Kos.