Biden’s DOJ is fighting to keep a mask mandate in place at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals
Joe Biden’s administration is fighting to reinstate a federal mask mandate for air travel – even after the president declared in September that the COVID-19 pandemic is ‘over’, and it’s been nearly a year since domestic airline passengers have been required to mask up on flights.
The legal fight comes almost six months after the president declared that the pandemic was ‘over’ in a television interview.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments on Tuesday from the Biden Justice Department on behalf of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to reinstate a mask mandate for air travel, after a federal judge in Florida struck down the mandate last April, Fox News reported.
‘The pandemic is over. We still have a problem with COVID. We’re still doing a lot of work on it,’ Biden said in a CBS interview that aired in September.
‘If you notice, no one’s wearing a mask, everybody seems to be in pretty good shape,’ Biden added while he walked through the Detroit Auto Show.
The Health Freedom Defense Fund (HDFD), a medical rights advocacy group that initially sued the Biden administration in July 2021, will make the argument in court Tuesday that the order requiring all travelers to wear masks ‘lacks not only any rooting in federal statutes, but it also violated existing federal law in how it was promulgated.
‘The mandate also suffers from an inconsistent application of sound science.’
‘The Biden administration is trying to paper over an illegal, sweeping mandate on Americans that is full of massive legal and scientific holes,’ HFDF founder and President Leslie Manookian said in a press statement.
‘That a federal agency should be able to just usurp the power of Congress, and violate fundamental individual rights is not only at odds with the law – it defies basic common sense.’
Airlines and the Transportation Department have faced several months of criticism following a major meltdown over the holidays, specifically with Southwest Airlines, where thousands of flights were delayed or canceled over the course of several days.
Shortly after, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had a systems glitch this month, which led to the grounding of all domestic flights nationwide for hours one morning that resulted in several days of chaos.
The FAA has operated without a Senate-confirmed administrator since March 2022.
