The Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration Friday in a ruling of 8-1 against two states that challenged its immigration enforcement priorities.
Texas and Louisiana challenged guidelines issued by the Department of Homeland Security in 2021 that prioritized arresting and removing certain groups of illegal immigrants, including suspected terrorists and criminals.
The Supreme Court said Friday that the two states lack standing to challenge the guidelines, noting that the states “have not cited any precedent, history, or tradition of courts ordering the Executive Branch to change its arrest or prosecution policies so that the Executive Branch makes more arrests or initiates more prosecutions.”
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“In holding that Texas and Louisiana lack standing, we do not suggest 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 majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, and Amy Coney Barrett concurred in the judgment.
In his dissent, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the majority’s decision “renders States already laboring under the effects of massive illegal immigration even more helpless,” arguing that Texas did have standing to sue.
“If States are also barred from bringing suit even when they satisfy our established test for Article III standing, they are powerless to defend their vital interests,” he wrote. “If a President fails or refuses to enforce the immigration laws, the States must simply bear the consequences.”
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