Temporarily, the Supreme Court is halting an order that would relax asylum limitations imposed during the outbreak. However, the possibility of easing the limitations by Wednesday is still open.

Monday’s ruling by Chief Justice John Roberts comes as conservative states want to maintain restrictions on asylum seekers imposed at the start of the coronavirus outbreak. As a last-ditch effort, they are appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court before the restrictions expire.

Roberts issued a stay pending further instructions and instructed the government to answer by Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. That is only hours before Wednesday’s expiration of the restrictions.

In a last-ditch effort to prevent the expiration of asylum-seeker restrictions imposed at the start of the coronavirus outbreak, conservative states are appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court.

With the removal of immigration restrictions on Wednesday, however, it is uncertain if the Supreme Court would interfere. On Monday, the nineteen states petitioned the court for an emergency stay to preserve Title 42.

“This Court’s review is warranted given the enormous national importance of this case. It is not reasonably contestable that the failure to grant a stay will cause an unprecedented calamity at the southern border,” the states wrote in their request.

The immigration limitations, also known to as Title 42, were implemented in March 2020 by then-President Donald Trump and have blocked hundreds of thousands of refugees from requesting asylum in the United States during the past several years. At the U.S.-Mexico border, however, thousands more migrants are crammed into shelters as their visas near expiration.

Immigration groups filed a lawsuit to halt the use of Title 42 to restrict who can seek for asylum, arguing that the program violates American and international duties to those coming to the United States to avoid persecution. And they have contended that vaccinations and coronavirus treatments have rendered the policy obsolete.

States with a tendency toward conservatism have claimed that lifting Title 42 will result in an influx of migrants into their states and put a strain on government services such as health care and law enforcement. CONTINUE READING…