The US Supreme Court, in a victory for President Joe Biden's administration, on Friday upheld the federal government's right to decide which undocumented migrants should be deported.
In an 8-1 vote, the nation's highest court ruled that the states of Texas and Louisiana lacked the legal standing to challenge the federal government's policy.
Texas and Louisiana filed suit after the Department of Homeland Security, in September 2021, instructed US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to concentrate expulsion efforts on people who “pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security”.
Defending the policy of Mr Biden's administration in court, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said the federal government has to prioritise its efforts because it does not have the resources to pursue the 11 million undocumented “noncitizens” in the country.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who wrote the majority opinion, said the states had brought an “extraordinarily unusual lawsuit”.
“They want a federal court to order the executive branch to alter its arrest policies so as to make more arrests,” Mr Kavanaugh said. “Federal courts have not traditionally entertained that kind of lawsuit.”
He said if the court ruled in favour of the states, it would lead to “expansive judicial direction of the Department's arrest policies”.
“We could anticipate complaints in future years about alleged executive branch underenforcement of any similarly worded laws – whether they be drug laws, gun laws, obstruction of justice laws, or the like,” Mr Kavanaugh said.
During oral arguments before the court in November, Texas Solicitor General Judd Stone said prioritising certain categories of people for expulsion would impose costs on the state, which shares a border with Mexico and is an entry point for hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants every year.
“Texas suffers injuries, regardless of what it does, whether it detains, releases or paroles individuals because we have not only law enforcement costs, but social services costs and very serious threats of recidivism,” Mr Stone said.
Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, has been sending busloads of immigrants to Democratic-held states in recent months to protest the federal government's immigration policies.
The Biden administration's move to focus on people considered a threat to national security or public safety for deportation represented a shift from the policy of the administration of former president Donald Trump, which called for the expulsion of “all removable aliens”.
