If the Supreme Court won’t force Biden to enforce immigration law, no one will
BY NOLAN RAPPAPORT, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 06/28/23 12:30 PM ET
In what has been described as a major victory for President Biden’s immigration policies, the Supreme Court recently held that Texas and Louisiana do not have standing to bring a suit challenging his administration’s immigration enforcement guidelines in federal court.
The justices who voted for this decision have shielded Biden and every future president from judicial review of their immigration enforcement policies.
Legal actions cannot be brought in federal court solely because an individual or group is displeased with a government action or law. A lower court found that the states in this case are injured by the challenged enforcement policy because it results in additional state expenses, and monetary costs are an injury. But the Supreme Court has stressed that the alleged injury must also “be legally and judicially cognizable.” This, of course, is subject to interpretation based on the facts of a particular case.
In his opinion for the majority, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh framed the dispute as an effort by Texas and Louisiana to obtain a court order that would require the Department of Homeland Security to “alter its arrest policy so that the Department arrests more noncitizens.” But the states have cited no precedent, history or tradition of federal courts entertaining lawsuits of this kind. In fact, the Supreme Court has held that “a plaintiff lacks standing to bring such a suit when he himself is neither prosecuted nor threatened with prosecution.”
https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/4070754-if-the-supreme-court-wont-force-biden-to-enforce-immigration-law-no-one-will/
