Supreme Court Rejects Challenge by Louisiana and Texas to Biden Deportation Priorities

In an 8-1 ruling on Friday, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to a Biden Administration memorandum that prioritizes immigration enforcement on illegals who pose a threat to national security, public safety or who recently crossed the border.

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas stated in the memorandum that, because of the approximately 11 million undocumented or otherwise removable non-citizens in the country,  the United States does not have the ability to remove all of them and thus would prioritize who will be removed.

In the case before the Court, Louisiana and Texas argued that federal law gives Biden less discretion to pick and choose the targets of enforcement.

With the decision, the court said the states did not have the legal standing to bring the lawsuit forward in the first place.

The ruling could have implications on the standing of when a state can challenge a federal policy in court in the future.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion.

CNN reports:

“In Sum, the States have brought an extraordinarily unusual lawsuit,” Kavanaugh wrote, in an opinion joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “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.”

Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett, wrote a concurring an opinion that concluded that the states also lacked reasoning, but for different reasons than the majority opinion. Justice Samuel Alito dissented.

Justice Samul Alito dissented writing that Biden’s policy “inflicts substantial harm on the state and its residents by releasing illegal aliens with criminal convictions for serious crimes.”