The US Supreme Court on Monday temporarily halted the expiry of the controversial “Title 42” deportation rule.

This rule allows border officials to turn migrants away without any procedures on the grounds of public health.

It has been in effect since the beginning of the corona pandemic in March 2020 and should end this Wednesday.

Sofia Dreisbach

North American political correspondent based in Washington.

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With his decision, Chief Justice John Roberts responded to an urgent request from 19 Republican-governed states, which had asked for an extension of the exemption.

Monday's paper speaks of "enormous challenges" and a "crisis of unprecedented proportions" should the regulation fall.

The states warn of an increase in illegal migration at the southern border.

Number of migrants at peak

Large groups of migrants have been gathering in the border areas for several weeks.

The motion continues, "The notion that the states will not suffer significant irreparable damage from the impending catastrophe that a Title 42 termination will bring is therefore a pipe dream."

The urgent application was signed, among others, by the border states of Arizona and Texas, which are struggling with the processing of many migrants.

Chief Justice Roberts has asked the Biden administration to respond to the request by Tuesday afternoon.

The number of migrants trying to cross the southern border into the United States is at an all-time high.

From the beginning of the year to September 30, authorities apprehended some 2.2 million migrants at the border with Mexico, many of them people who had previously tried to seek asylum.

Thousands of migrants have also gathered at the southern border of the United States in recent weeks.

State of emergency declared in El Paso

As the broadcaster CNN reports, the border authorities in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas counted 900 to 1,200 migrants a day.

On the Mexican side, around 10,000 migrants are waiting for the end of the “Title 42” regulation in poor conditions and in some cases without care.

The mayor of the Texas border town of El Paso declared a state of emergency over the weekend because the city could no longer handle the onslaught.

The people could not be accommodated safely, it got dangerously cold at night.

A senior border guard spoke at the weekend of a peak in migrants: an average of 2,460 people arrived in three days, many of them initially staying in El Paso.

The Biden administration had prepared for the rule to fall this week.

Spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday she would ask Congress for more than $3 billion, including for additional staff, equipment and housing for migrants at the US-Mexico border.

A six-point plan by the Department of Homeland Security envisages, among other things, more officers and more means of transport to continue the migrants, as well as increased action against smugglers.

According to media reports, even after Title 42, the government is planning restrictive immigration regulations that could be used to turn away migrants who did not first apply for asylum in other countries in transit.

During the 2020 election campaign, President Joe Biden advocated reversing Trump's tough migration policy as soon as possible.

But after the special regulation was extended in August 2021, Biden failed in the spring of this year due to a successful lawsuit in an attempt to finally annul the “Title 42”.

Before the temporary stop by the Supreme Court, a federal appeals court in Washington initially rejected the request of the Republican states to retain the regulation last Friday.

Judge Emmet Sullivan said the application of the rule was "arbitrary" and unlawful.