(DCWatchdog.com) – A new ruling by the US Supreme Court that states have no standing to challenge federal policy on the deportation of illegal immigrants is considered a victory for the Biden administration. It has enraged millions of conservative Republicans, according to a report.
In “United States v. Texas,” the Supreme Court ruled Texas and Louisiana didn’t have legal standing to sue the administration of President Joe Biden over a deportation policy adopted in 2021, The National Review reports.
The 8-1 Supreme Court decision comes in a lawsuit brought by the two states after two years ago, the US Department of Homeland Security prioritized only certain groups of illegal immigrants for deportation.
In a memo issued then, Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, stated that the DHS didn’t have sufficient resources to expel all 11 million illegal immigrants estimated to be living in the United States.
That is why the department focused on removing primarily “suspected terrorists, dangerous criminals, and those recently caught at the border.”
Texas and Louisiana sued the US government, arguing the DHS violated federal status obliging the department to arrest more illegal immigrants pending their deportation.
“The States essentially want the Federal Judiciary to order the Executive Branch to alter its arrest policy so as to make more arrests,” Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority.
“But 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.’ Consistent with that fundamental Article III principle, we conclude that the States lack Article III standing to bring this suit,” Kavanaugh elaborated.
He added that Texas and Louisiana’s lawsuit was “extraordinarily unusual” and didn’t cite any precedent.
The only Supreme Court justice who dissented was conservative Samuel Alito.
“This sweeping Executive Power endorsed by today’s decision may at first be warmly received by champions of a strong Presidential power, but if Presidents can expand their powers as far as they can manage in a test of strength with Congress, presumably Congress can cut executive power as much as it can manage by wielding the formidable weapons at its disposal. That is not what the Constitution envisions,” Alito wrote.
