If it's Wednesday, border officials, lawmakers, the White House, and migrants hoping for asylum in this country react to the Supreme Court's decision to keep the pandemic-era border policy known as Title 42 in place for the foreseeable future.

Plus, unrelenting travel chaos, An unprecedented number of flights canceled. Thousands of

passengers stranded for days. Now the Biden administration is promising to hold Southwest Airlines

accountable. And New Year, new travel restrictions. The White House Institute's new rules this

hour requiring COVID testing for people traveling from China as a COVID surge oversees racist fears of a worsening spike at home.

Welcome to meet the Press Now.

I'm Kristen Welker.

We now know it will be months until a decision is made on the fate of the controversial title 42 border policy. That means months of waiting for migrants hoping to apply for asylum and months of uncertainty for border communities as well.

While we were on the air yesterday, the news broke that the Supreme Court was ordering

the pandemic era Title 42 policy to be kept in place until the court can hear arguments on the

case. Now, those arguments are slated for February, but a ruling would likely not happen until June.

That means border officials will maintain the right to turn away most asylum seekers on public health grounds well into next year.

The 19 Republican attorneys general who brought the challenge to the Supreme Court say Title 42 is needed as border crossings are at record levels and could rise if the directed

is lifted. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol said they had 233,000 encounters at the southern border

in the months of November. That number was 175,000 in November of 2021 and 72,000 in November of

2020.

The Biden administration was pushing to end Title 42,

but yesterday President Biden said he would abide by the court's decision.

Take a listen.

The court is not going to decide until June, apparently,

and in the meantime, we have to enforce it.

But I think it's overdue.

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