Supreme Court Rejects ‘Extraordinarily Unusual’ Case Against Biden’s Deportation Policy

June 26, 2023

Today’s decision “is narrow and simply maintains the longstanding jurisprudential status quo,” wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh for the majority.

by Fiona Harrigan Reason.com

In an 8–1 ruling today, the Supreme Court dismissed a challenge brought by two states against the Biden administration’s deportation priorities. The ruling means the Biden administration may now reinstate those enforcement guidelines.

Texas and Louisiana sued the Biden administration over its updated guidance in April 2021, arguing that it violated federal statutes that require certain noncitizens to be detained. A district judge in Texas ruled for the states, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld that ruling. But today, the Supreme Court held that the states lacked standing to sue under Article III of the Constitution. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the majority, noted that “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.'”