Supreme Court Says U.S. Can Choose Who It Will Deport—Dismisses Texas, La. Immgiration Challenge

Topline

Texas and Louisiana do not have standing to sue the Biden Administration over an immigration deportation policy, the Supreme Court ruled Friday, delivering a win to the Biden Administration in an 8-1 ruling—though the court cautioned that doesn’t mean the White House couldn’t be sued in future cases.

An immigration activist participates in a rally near the U.S. Supreme Court on May 12, 2021 in … [+] Washington, DC.

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Key Facts

U.S. v. Texas concerns Texas’ and Louisiana’s legal challenge against a Biden immigration policy, outlined in a September 2021 memo, that prioritized some undocumented immigrants for deportation over others, noting the administration “do[es] not have the resources to apprehend and seek the removal of every one of these noncitizens.”

The Supreme Court ruled Texas and Louisiana did not have standing to challenge that policy, reinstating the Biden Administration’s directive after a lower court struck it down.

Texas and Louisiana argued the Biden Administration’s directive violated other federal laws that would require them to arrest more undocumented immigrants than the 2021 memo, which prioritizes immigrants who pose a terrorism threat or other threat to public safety.

The lawsuit violated court precedent that says people lack standing to bring lawsuits against a “prosecuting authority when he himself is neither prosecuted nor threatened with prosecution,” the court ruled.

The court’s ruling in this case doesn’t mean “that federal courts may never entertain cases involving the Executive Branch’s alleged failure to make more arrests or bring more prosecutions,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the court’s opinion, noting there are other situations in which it’s possible plaintiffs would have standing, and that there might be more of a case challenging policies around detaining undocumented immigrants who have been arrested, rather than arresting and prosecuting them in the first place.

The Texas attorney general’s office has not yet responded to a request for comment.

Crucial Quote

“To be clear, our … decision today should in no way be read to suggest or imply that the Executive possesses some freestanding or general constitutional authority to disregard statutes requiring or prohibiting executive action,” Kavanaugh wrote, calling Texas and Louisiana’s case “extraordinarily unusual” and saying the court’s decision is “narrow and simply maintains the longstanding jurisprudential status quo.”

Chief Critic

Justice Samuel Alito was the only justice to vote in the conservative states’ favor, writing in his dissent that the court’s ruling “brushes aside a major precedent that directly controls the standing question, refuses to apply our established test for standing, disregards factual findings made by the District Court after a trial, and holds that the only limit on the power of a President to disobey a law like the important provision at issue is Congress’s power to employ the weapons of inter-branch warfare.” “I would not blaze this unfortunate trail,” Alito wrote, arguing “settled law … leads ineluctably to the conclusion that Texas has standing.”

Key Background

The Biden Administration directive at the heart of the case argues that someone not being a documented immigrant “should not alone be the basis of an enforcement action against them,” arguing “the majority of undocumented noncitizens who could be subject to removal have been contributing members of our communities for years.” The memo states the administration will prioritize undocumented immigrants who pose threats to national security by being suspected of terrorism or espionage; have a history of “serious criminal conduct” that makes them a threat to public safety or pose a threat to border security, if they were apprehended at the border or port of entry. Texas and Louisiana’s lawsuit is part of a broader effort by conservative-led states to oppose the Biden Administration’s immigration policies, and the states previously won in district court, where a Trump-appointed judge halted the immigration directive in June 2022. That ruling was then upheld in the conservative-leaning Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Before the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday, the court had previously ruled in the states’ favor, ruling 5-4 in July 2022 to leave the lower court ruling that blocked the policy in place until it could issue its final opinion in the case.

Topline

Key Facts

Crucial Quote

Chief Critic

Key Background

Further Reading