WASHINGTON – White House officials said Tuesday that a potential court order delaying the end of Title 42 would only worsen the border crisis that state officials claim they are trying to prevent by seeking the order.

The comments came one day after a federal judge agreed with three states, including Arizona, to temporarily stop the administration’s plan to lift the pandemic-era border policy on May 23. Title 42 has been used to turn away more than 1.8 million migrants since it was invoked in March 2020.

But senior Biden administration officials said Tuesday that if a federal district judge in Louisiana goes through with the temporary restraining order to keep Title 42 in place, it would hamper Department of Homeland Security efforts to prepare for increased immigration when the policy is ultimately lifted. A full hearing on the order is set for May 13.

“When the Title 42 order is lifted, we intend to significantly expand the use of expedited removal through our Title 8 authorities, and thereby impose long-term law enforcement consequences on those who seek to cross the border without a lawful basis to do so,” said one administration official in the background press briefing.

“It really makes no sense to us that the plaintiffs would demand that the court would order that DHS be stopped in its use of expedited removal, which again is going to prevent us from adequately preparing for the aggressive application of immigration law when the public health order expires,” the official said.

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who led Louisiana and Missouri attorneys general in the lawsuit to keep Title 42, hailed the order from U.S. District Judge Robert R. Summerhays.

“We applaud the Court for approving our request for a Temporary Restraining Order to keep Title 42 in place,” Brnovich said in a statement Monday. “The Biden administration cannot continue in flagrant disregard for existing laws and required administrative procedures.”

The states filed their suit on April 3, shortly after the administration said it would end Title 42, and later asked for a restraining order on news reports that Customs and Border Protection had already stopped enforcing the policy.

The suit claims that the administration is woefully underprepared for what it calls “an imminent, man-made, self-inflicted calamity” and argues that Title 42 is the only policy keeping the immigration system and border from falling into “unmitigated chaos and catastrophe.”

Administration officials said during Tuesday’s briefing that DHS is working with other agencies on a “six pillar” plan to cope with an influx of migrants: surging resources, increasing CBP personnel, improving processing efficiency, administering consequences for unlawful trade, bolstering detention capacity and targeting transnational criminal organizations. But they also said that if Summerhays imposes a restraining order, they will abide by it.

The action comes as border numbers reached their highest level in 22 years, with 221,303 encounters with migrants at the southern border in March. CBP said 109,549 of those migrants were turned away under Title 42.

Title 42 is a public health policy invoked at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic by the Trump administration to prevent asylum-seekers from bringing the virus. Since it was first invoked, it has resulted in more than 1.8 million expulsions, 1.35 million of which came during the Biden administration.

Advocates criticized the policy from the start, saying it exposed migrants to violence and unhealthy living conditions as they waited in makeshift camps south of the border.

“Title 42 violates U.S. asylum law and the Convention Against Torture, and this lawsuit drops all pretense of this being about public health,” said Greer Millard, a spokesperson for the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project. “The Florence Project and our partner organizations have the experience and expertise to welcome migrants, and we are ready, willing, and able to support the reopening of humane asylum processing at the border.”

After mounting pressure from advocates to end the policy, the Biden administration announced in April that it would end the policy due to the slowing of the pandemic, the wide availability of vaccines and the lifting of other pandemic protections.

Critics raised concerns that DHS was not ready to handle the expected surge in migrants. Even some border state Democrats – including Arizona Sens. Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema and Reps. Tom O’Halleran and Greg Stanton – have backed bills to keep Title 42 in place until the administration creates a plan to handle the influx.

Kelly told Politico on Tuesday that the temporary restraining order did not satisfy his concerns, as the administration still does not have a plan to handle the increase.

“I’d like to see a plan from the administration,” Kelly said. “The courts are separate from what we do here. It doesn’t change my requirement that I want to see them have a plan that’s workable.”

But more-progressive Democrats like Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Tucson, said the justifications for Title 42 are past and it’s time to end the program.

“He (Grijalva) still believes that Title 42 is a weaponized Trump-era public health policy to deny asylum seekers their legal rights and not real border policy,” said Grijalva spokesperson Jason Johnson in an email. “The Biden administration still has time to implement a comprehensive plan and should end Title 42.”

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PHOENIX – Forty-five percent of Arizona students in grades pre-K through 12 identify as Latino, but one report shows they’re falling behind in the classroom. One factor driving that trend, the report says, is the lack of Latino teachers in the state.

A 2021-22 report from ALL In Education – a nonprofit that compiles research, data and community feedback to create reports on the state of education in Arizona – showed that third-grade Latino students scored 27 points below white students in reading proficiency and eighth-grade students were 23 points below in math.

Stephanie Parra, the executive director of ALL In Ed, said a lack of representation in the teaching workforce is a factor.

“When students have a teacher who looks like them, they perform better on tests, they attend school at higher rates, so the absenteeism rates go down; they also see their suspension rates go down,” Parra said.

Only 16% of Arizona’s more than 58,000 teachers are Latino, according to Arizona Department of Education data analyzed by ALL In Ed. Advocates suggest creating a student-teacher pipeline in Latino communities to improve those numbers.

“If Latino students are not graduating high school at higher rates,” Parra said, “or going to college at higher rates, or getting college degrees, or if college is not accessible to them, or a pathway made available to them, it is hard for them to become teachers.”

Only 71% of Latino students graduate from high school in four years, according to state data. Of those who graduate, 22% enter a four-year college and 54% graduate, the ALL In Ed report said.

Implementing solutions does not come without challenges, however. Matthew Georgia is the principal at Cesar Chavez High School in south Phoenix, where nearly 75% of the student body and 26% of teachers are Hispanic, according to the Department of Education. In 2021, only 16% of students at Cesar Chavez High School were at least proficient in English language arts in Arizona’s Academic Standards Assessment testing (formerly the AzMerit test).

Georgia said the value communities place on education plays a factor in academic achievement for students.

“Some communities value education more than others,” he said, noting that generational poverty, access to good health care and the availability of stable housing factor into a student’s achievement in the classroom. Georgia hopes strengthening the value of education in communities will help to create a pipeline to teaching.

Solutions proposed

“I think it has to be a career that looks to be respected and supported by communities,” he said. “ I think if we create an opportunity for students to see that, you know, teachers live a good life, and they contribute back to their community, and they can help shape the future of future generations. And I think more people will be more enticed by the work of education.”

Chavez High participates in ALL In Ed’s Parent Educator Academy, a leadership program for parents to become more involved in their children’s education. It aims to help parents communicate with teachers and take a more hands-on role.

“They are gaining a sense of self-efficacy and understanding that they have agency over their own lives, over their own students’ education, and that they can truly be partners in the educational experience of their kids,” Parra said, adding that several parents in the academy have expressed interest in pursuing careers in education.

Exposing Latino students to educational career paths in high school can help close the representation gap, she said, by leading to more diverse applicant pools for teaching jobs. One initiative aiming to accomplish this is Achieve60AZ, where the goal is to have 60% of all working-age adults in Arizona have at least one post-secondary credential by 2030.

A statewide alliance is driving the initiative to reach the 60% goal. The nonprofit Education Forward Arizona uses the Arizona Education Progress Meter, which tracks eight key metrics of educational achievement, including third-grade reading proficiency, eighth-grade math scores and high school graduation. The attainment rate for Arizonans 25 to 64 with a post-secondary credential is at 46%, as of 2019.

Rich Nickel, president and CEO of Education Forward Arizona, said post-secondary education can provide a link between representation and achievement. According to Nickel, nearly 7 out of 10 jobs require some form of post-secondary education.

Requirements for Arizona K-8 teachers include completion of a teacher preparation program or two years of teaching experience, plus education coursework and a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university. Passing scores on subject knowledge exams also are required.

To achieve the 60% attainment goal, Nickel said, the alliance is working with schools across the state to provide resources to predominantly high-need and first-generation students, including showing students how to gain access to and enroll in AmeriCorps programs.

“At the end of the day, if we do not provide those supports and that investment in this very fast-growing population of students that want to be successful, then we’re really doing ourselves a disservice as a state,” Nickel said.

Advocates say investing in Latino education would benefit not only the students, but also Arizona, which is more than 30% Hispanic or Latino, according to 2020 census data.

“We are operating with a sense of urgency around creating opportunities for our community because it is the future of the state,” Parra said.

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WASHINGTON – A voters’ advocacy group said it will appeal a Maricopa County judge’s decision to dismiss its lawsuit that sought to ban three GOP lawmakers from the ballot for their support of the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Superior Court Judge Christopher Coury said his Friday ruling “neither validates nor disproves” the claim that U.S. Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar and Arizona Rep. Mark Finchem engaged in insurrection – only that the voters did not have standing to challenge their qualification for the ballot on those grounds.

Biggs, R-Gilbert, on Friday welcomed the dismissal of what he called a “frivolous” lawsuit aimed at “political harassment.” And in a statement Sunday, Gosar, R-Bullhead City, called the claims “abusive” and praised Coury as a “good judge who understands the law and the rules.”

But Free Speech for People, the voting rights organization that backed the lawsuit, called the ruling “contrary to the law” and said it will appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court.

“Arizona is not exempted from the mandate of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” the group said in a statement. “A candidate who has taken an oath of office and then engaged in insurrection has no place on a future Arizona ballot.”

Arizona’s primary election is not until Aug. 2, but counties must mail out the first ballots on June 18, leaving only about six weeks for the courts to determine if the three lawmakers should be on or off the ballot. An official with the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office said Monday that the office is waiting on direction from the county attorney’s office following last week’s ruling.

The Arizona case is one of three backed by Free Speech for People, which pressed similar claims against Republican Reps. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

All three cases cite the 14th Amendment, which prohibits people who have taken an oath to defend the Constitution from holding office if they then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the government.

A federal judge in North Carolina agreed to dismiss the case against Cawthorn, while another judge said the case against Greene should proceed. Greene testified Friday in an administrative hearing on her case in state court.

The Arizona case cited a state statute on elections that says “any elector may challenge a candidate for any reason relating to qualifications for office,” citing age, residency and other criteria prescribed by law.

The Arizona voters claimed that the Gosar, Biggs and Finchem were disqualified by their support for the Jan. 6 protests that led to the storming of the Capitol as Congress was about to certify the election of President Joe Biden over Donald Trump. That amounted to insurrection, they said.

But Coury said that a 19th-century law to enforce the disqualification clause of the 14th Amendment reserved that right to Congress, not private citizens. And he said the state law limits citizens to challenging qualifications “prescribed” in state law – age, residency and the like – but does not allow them to challenge “proscribed,” or prohibited, actions.

The judge rejected the voters’ request to let the case proceed to an “advisory evidentiary hearing” to determine whether the three lawmakers were guilty of insurrection, noting the tight time frame for a decision and the “complex constitutional, legal and factual issues” that would need to be decided.

Coury added in a footnote that his ruling does not mean that the lawmakers cannot be held accountable for their actions with respect to Jan. 6, simply that “there may be a different time and type of case in which the Candidates’ involvement in the events of that day appropriately can … be adjudicated in court.”

“And, irrespective of this decision, there ultimately will be a different trial for each Candidate: one decided by Arizona voters who will have the final voice about whether each Candidate should, or should not, serve in elective office,” he wrote.

Finchem, R-Tucson, did not respond to a request for comment Monday. But his attorney, Jack Wilenchik, called Coury’s decision a “common sense ruling,” as candidates can only be barred from office if they have been convicted of insurrection or rebellion.

“Otherwise we’d see a spate of lawsuits accusing every candidate of committing crimes, especially in today’s political climate,” Wilenchik said.

That was echoed by Gosar’s attorney, Alexander Kolodin, who said the lawmakers now will focus on making “sure that the Arizona Supreme Court affirms that you can’t be kicked off the ballot because you said some things your political opponents don’t like.”

Kory Langhofer, Biggs’ lawyer, in an email called the opinion “the most thoughtful and well-researched opinion dealing with insurrection allegations in this election cycle. I expect it to be quoted and cited by other courts around the country that are with pending insurrection cases.”

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