Congress wrote the sentence now doing more work than most of the Constitution in the fight over federal immigration policy, and it wrote that sentence in 1946, thinking about grain quotas and radio licenses, not presidential power.

Section 706 of the Administrative Procedure Act instructs a reviewing court to “hold unlawful and set aside” agency action found to be arbitrary and capricious. On June 23, Judge P. Casey Pitts of the Northern District of California leaned on those five words to vacate three ICE courthouse arrest policies nationwide in Pablo Sequen v. Albarran, days after the Supreme Court told district judges they can’t issue nationwide injunctions anymore.