The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday removed from its argument calendar a Republican bid to keep in place a COVID-19 pandemic-related policy that has allowed American officials to quickly expel hundreds of thousands of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Justice Department had said in a court filing that the case would become moot when the policy, known as Title 42, expired as a result of the government’s announcement that the COVID-19 public health emergency would end effective May 11.
The justices were due to hear oral arguments in the case on March 1. At issue in the case, which the court agreed to hear in December, was whether a group of Republican state attorneys general may intervene to defend the Title 42 expulsions after a U.S. judge ruled the public health order unlawful.
The ruling on the public health order came in a lawsuit file by asylum-seeking migrant families represented by the American Civil Liberties Union.