WASHINGTON, March 4 (Reuters) – President Joe Biden’s administration can continue to rapidly expel migrant families caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, but should not send them anywhere they could be persecuted or tortured, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday.

The ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit lets the government keep in place restrictions first implemented under Democrat Biden’s Republican predecessor Donald Trump in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A group of affected migrants, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and other non-profit organizations, challenged the legality of the expulsion policy, known as Title 42, in court.

The appeals court decided that the migrants covered by the policy likely “have no right to be in the United States” and that Biden’s administration “can immediately expel them.”

It added that the administration “cannot remove aliens to a country where their ‘life or freedom would be threatened’ on account of their ‘race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion'” or “to a country where they will likely be tortured.”

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