article: This lawsuit was filed on July 24, 2020 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The suit was brought by the Texas Civil Rights Project as next friend for one hundred unaccompanied migrant children who had been arrested by Customs and Border Protection. The plaintiffs were represented by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union Immigration Rights Project, the ACLU Foundation of Texas, Oxfam America, the Center for Gender and Refugees Studies, and the ACLU of D.C.. They sued the Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Chad Wolf, Acting Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan, Chief of U.S. Border Patrol Rodney Scott, Director of Immigration Customs and Enforcement Matthew Albence, Secretary of HHS Alex Azar, and CDC Director Robert Redfield. The complaint contended that the federal government had implemented a new process of removing immigrant children without providing for adequate protections, especially by holding those children away from their families or other sponsors and by not providing counsel. This process was instituted over a series of regulations, orders, and agency memos that the complaint calls the "Title 42 Process." The complaint argued that this Title 42 Process violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the Public Health Service Act (PHSA), the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act (FARRA), and that agencies exceed the power granted to them under the Immigration and Naturalization Act. They requested declaratory relief and injunctive relief that would prohibit the defendants from enforcing the Title 42 Process, stay their removal, grant them counsel, and grant the children TVPRA protections. The case was assigned to Judge Beryl A. Howell. A few weeks later, on August 6, the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed the case, even before defendants responded -- they did not give an explanation as to why they dismissed the case. In a minute order on August 10, Judge Howell dismissed the case without prejudice and closed the case.
summary: This case was brought by Texas Civil Rights Project as next friend for one hundred unaccompanied migrant children against top executives of the Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the CDC, and the HHS. They argued that a group of regulations, orders, and memos made up a process called "Title 42 Process," which skirted statutory law requiring certain safeguards on the removal of unaccompanied immigrant minors. While the process was created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the plaintiffs argued that the process was an illegal expansion of executive authority. However, a few weeks later, before defendants responded, the plaintiffs withdrew the complaint without explaining why. The case is now closed.