WASHINGTON / CIUDAD JUAREZ / LOS ANGELES / MOSCOW – A US appeals court on Monday said the White House could not require federal contractors to ensure that their workers are vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of government contracts. The US government has contracts with thousands of companies, and courts have said the issue could affect up to 20% of US workers.
A panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to uphold a lower court decision that blocked President Joe Biden’s September 2021 contractor vaccine executive order in those states after Louisiana, Indiana, and Mississippi brought suit to seek invalidation of the mandate. The court said Biden wanted it “to ratify an exercise of proprietary authority that would permit him to unilaterally impose a healthcare decision on one-fifth of all employees in the United States.
We decline to do so.” The majority opinion written by Judge Kurt Engelhardt said a broad interpretation of the law could give Biden “nearly unlimited authority to introduce requirements into federal contracts.” Meanwhile, the US Supreme Court on Monday said COVID-era restrictions at the US-Mexico border that have prevented hundreds of thousands of migrants from seeking asylum should be kept in place for now, siding with Republicans who brought a legal challenge.