The Supreme Court gave the Biden administration a victory in an immigration case, ruling that Republican states could not challenge a policy narrowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) priorities for arresting and deporting illegal immigrants.
In an 8-1 ruling, the Justices decided the “States have brought an extraordinarily unusual lawsuit.”
“They want a federal court to order the Executive Branch to alter its arrest policies so as to make more arrests. Federal courts have not traditionally entertained that kind of lawsuit; indeed, the States cite no precedent for a lawsuit like this,” reads the opinion from Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Justice Samuel Alito was the sole dissenter in the case.
The case surrounded new guidelines from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), explaining that ICE agents should only target specific kinds of illegal immigrants for arrest.
Those targeted included: recent border crossers, public threats, and national security threats.
“The fact an individual is a removable noncitizen therefore should not alone be the basis of an enforcement action against them,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas wrote in the guidelines.
“We will use our discretion and focus our enforcement resources in a more targeted way. Justice and our country’s well-being require it.”
Reporting from Fox News:
Texas and Louisiana challenged the legality of the guidelines, arguing that the policy breached the Administrative Procedure Act and that they had standing because their states would incur greater law enforcement costs and a significant impact on social services due to the increase in illegal immigration that resulted. A district court found that the states did have standing and blocked the implementation of the policy. However, the high court disagreed: "The threshold question is whether the States have standing under Article III to maintain this suit. The answer is no." The opinion said that while monetary costs are an injury, the injury to allow standing must also be "legally and judicially cognizable." ... Justices Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas concurred in the judgment, but said they "diagnose the jurisdictional defect differently… the problem here is redressability." They say that the states lack standing "because federal courts do not have authority to redress their injuries."
