Supreme
Court hands Biden a rare win on immigration enforcement, deportations
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden received a rare victory on Friday in a significant immigration issue from the Supreme Court, which said Republican officials in two states who opposed the president's decision to target some unlawful immigrants for arrest and detention over others did not have legal grounds to file a lawsuit.
The majority of five justices, which included Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, was written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Clarence Thomas, Amy Coney Barrett, and Justice Neil Gorsuch all concurred in the decision's outcome in a separate opinion that was written by them.
Samul Alito, a judge, spoke opposition.
The states "want a federal court to order the executive branch to change its arrest policies so that it makes more arrests," Kavanaugh wrote. The states identify no precedent for a lawsuit of this nature, and federal courts have historically refused to hear such cases.
What was the newest
immigration case involving Biden about?
◾ A Biden directive from 2021 that concentrated enforcement on aliens who pose a threat to public safety or national security or who have just crossed the border was at issue in the U.S. v. Texas case. The administration claims that because it lacks the means to deport all illegal immigrants, it chose to give priority to those immigrants. Texas and Louisiana claimed that the federal law limits Biden's ability to determine the targets of his enforcement efforts.
According to Kavanaugh, states don't have a stake in whether or not the federal government prosecutes aliens more or less. The executive branch must concentrate its enforcement operations, he wrote. This is due to the fact that the executive branch never has the funding to apprehend and prosecute every lawbreaker.
The policy of Biden, according to Alito's opinion, "inflicts substantial harm on the state and its residents by releasing illegal aliens with criminal convictions for serious crimes."
Possibilities go beyond immigration
Despite the fact that the policy was at the center of the case, the justices spent just as much time during the November oral arguments arguing whether the states were able to sue and what authority lower courts have to stop such policies. This more technical issue ultimately led to the case's outcome.
Biden's legal counsel questioned whether Louisiana and Texas should be permitted to file a lawsuit. The states argue that immigration policy compelled them to spend more money, but detractors counter that the states actively sought to grow their populations, raising the same expenditures (such as for public education) with an influx of non-immigrants as well.
Tracking casesdebt, race, and religion. the Supreme Court's largest open cases are listed below.
The judgment may have repercussions for the frequent practice of states suing a presidential administration for violations of federal laws. The Friday ruling, Kavanaugh emphasized, would not grant next administrations "some freestanding or general constitutional authority to disregard statutes." However, Alito expressed concern that "presidential power may be extended even further" in subsequent cases.
How did the Supreme Court get involved in the
immigration case?
In a message to the Department of Homeland Security in 2021, Vice President Biden outlined his immigration priorities. But the states argued that the requirements of federal immigration law go beyond Biden's strategy: Immigrants who have committed specific crimes, such as serious felonies or human trafficking, must be detained by the authorities and arrested.
A federal district judge in Texas took the states' side and put a stop to the policy's implementation. Three judges on a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, all of whom were chosen by Republican presidents, decided against staying the district court's decision. The 5th Circuit's judgment was subsequently put on hold when Biden submitted an urgent request to the Supreme Court in July.
A 5-4 majority of the court rejected Biden's motion in July, preventing him from implementing the policy.
The high court was scheduled to hear a new immigration case in March over whether or not the government may continue to swiftly deport immigrants under the Title 42 program from the epidemic era. But the court took the lawsuit off the schedule when Biden said he would stop the COVID-19-related emergency announcements.
With over 11 million people in the country unlawfully, DHS only has roughly 6,000 interior enforcement agents, according to Biden's attorneys, so the administration is ill-equipped to meet the states' demands. The government contended that the administration's policies direct enforcement resources toward the worst offenders rather than reducing it.
Experts' reactions to the immigration decision
Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, commended the choice and stated that it will enable immigration agents to "effectively accomplish its law enforcement mission with the authorities and resources provided by Congress."
Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, said that the ruling "soundly rejects the misguided attempt by Texas and Louisiana to force the government to implement the most draconian immigration enforcement policy."
Requests for response from the Texas and Louisiana attorneys general were not immediately entertained.
Professor and immigration specialist Stephen Yale-Loehr of Cornell Law School stated that the Supreme Court "refused to issue sweeping proclamations" and instead "ruled as narrowly as possible."
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