The Supreme Court on Friday handed President Joe Biden a victory in a major immigration decision, upholding the president’s efforts to prioritize some unauthorized immigrants for arrest and detention over others.
In an 8-1 decision authored by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the majority held that Republican officials in Louisiana and Texas lacked the standing to sue against Biden’s policy.
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“The States essentially want the Federal Judiciary to order the Executive Branch to alter its arrest policy so as to make more arrests,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote.
“But this Court has long held ‘that a citizen lacks standing to contest the policies of the prosecuting authority when he himself is neither prosecuted nor threatened with prosecution.’”
At issue in the case was a September 2021 memorandum from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that focused enforcement on immigrants who pose a threat to national security, public safety, or border security. The administration said it wants to prioritize those immigrants for removal because it lacks the resources to remove everyone in the country illegally.
In Kavanaugh’s opinion, he signaled there may be more that Congress could do to address the overall complaint in the suit, suggesting that “other forums remain open” for the states to voice their concerns, adding, “We do not opine on whether any such actions are appropriate in this instance.”
Justice Samuel Alito filed a lone yet fiery dissent against the decision authored by his Republican-appointed colleague. He stated: “I would not blaze this unfortunate trail. I would simply apply settled law, which leads ineluctably to the conclusion that Texas has standing.”
Alito complained about the “sweeping Executive Power” that was “endorsed” by the majority that also included Republican-appointed Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the latter three being Democratic-appointees.
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote an opinion concurring with Kavanaugh, which was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett, making Alito the lone conservative to disagree from the pack.
The majority did notably hold that the ruling shouldn’t be interpreted to mean federal courts “may never entertain cases involving the Executive Branch’s alleged failure to make more arrests or bring more prosecutions.”
U.S. District Judge Drew Tiptop, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, previously blocked the Biden administration policy in June 2022, arguing Texas did have standing to sue because it could show immigrants who should have been detained because some resided in the state and had committed crimes.
Tiptop accused the executive branch of enforcing an unlawful policy and that it didn’t follow the correct procedures for implementation.
That led the high court to vote 5-4 in July 2022 to reject the Biden administration’s bid to immediately restore the policy while agreeing to take up the appeal.
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Under the Trump administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were told to focus efforts on any illegal immigrant, including those arrested after driving under the influence or charged with other less violent crimes. Since February 2021, ICE officers have had to go through an internal approval process by management before going into communities and arresting specific immigrants if they do not meet the three criteria.
Republicans have long argued that the Biden administration is failing to uphold proper border security, saying the handling of the southern border has led to an uptick in crime and a historic increase in the number of people entering the U.S. illegally.
Anna Giaritelli contributed to this report.
