TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis’ efforts to use the court system to score political points against the Biden administration may face a new hurdle after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday that states lacked the authority to challenge federal immigration guidelines and direct Congress to fix the mess.
In an 8-1 decision written by Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the court ruled that the plaintiffs, Texas and Louisiana, lacked standing to file their lawsuit to block the Biden administration’s 2021 guidelines.
But the justices also went beyond immigration when they imposed new limits on state attempts to challenge federal programs.
“If the court were to give this lawsuit the green light, we could anticipate complaints for years to come about the executive branch’s alleged violation of any similarly worded law, whether it’s drug laws, gun laws, obstruction of justice laws or the like,” Kavanaugh wrote in the opinion signed by five of the justices. “We refuse to start the federal judiciary down this uncharted path.”
Kavanaugh’s statement raised the possibility that the ruling could have a potential impact on dozens of partisan lawsuits brought by Republican-led states against the Biden administration, ranging from transgender rights and abortion to student loan debt , securities regulations and horse racing.
On Thursday, DeSantis and Attorney General Ashley Moody filed the latest lawsuit against the Biden administration, suing U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona in an effort to block accrediting agencies from having influence over colleges. · public schools and universities of the state.
In a major victory for the Biden administration, the court restored guidelines issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that prioritized the detention and removal from the United States of noncitizens who are suspected terrorists or dangerous criminals, or who have recently entered the country illegally.
Texas and Louisiana had argued that the guidelines allowed immigrants with criminal records to remain free while their cases progressed, forcing their states to jail or provide social services, such as health care and education, to people they said the federal government should ‘having arrested
Precedent in 5 previous administrations
But Kavanaugh noted that for decades, under five presidential administrations, the executive branch has lacked the resources to properly arrest and detain all noncitizens who pose a threat to public safety. He called the lawsuit “extraordinarily unusual” and rejected the states’ request “to order the executive branch to modify its detention policies to make more arrests.”
“Federal courts have not traditionally considered this type of lawsuit; indeed, the states cite no precedent for such a claim,” he wrote. He suggested that the proper authority to handle the problem was Congress.
“Congress has a number of tools to analyze and influence these policies: oversight, appropriations, the legislative process, and Senate confirmations, to name a few,” he wrote.
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The challenge is part of a growing trend in states controlled by one party to use taxpayer funds to challenge the policies of a president of another party, according to Paul Nolettea political scientist at Marquette University, who has been tracking the practice since 2014.
At the beginning of this year, Dear Nolette there are 56 pending lawsuits challenging the Biden administration’s policies from several states, including Florida.
Biden’s immigration guidelines sought to reverse the Trump administration’s expansive policies aimed at deporting anyone from the country who could not produce legal documentation. The rules were challenged by now-suspended Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was joined by state officials in Louisiana. Lower courts agreed with his argument and blocked the guidelines.
In a statement on TwitterMoody regretted the ruling but agreed that the responsibility now rests with Congress.
“This is a tragic decision for our nation and the safety of our communities,” he said. “Congress must roll up its sleeves. It has a lot of work to do.”
Florida has also sued the Biden administration over its immigration policies. In 2021, Moody and DeSantis sued the Biden administration and DHS over a parole program used to help DHS ease migrant congestion at the US southern border. The state argued that DHS had released thousands of migrants into communities without initiating removal proceedings.
The federal government subsequently scaled back the parole program, and after a federal judge sided with Florida officials and halted it, DHS did not appeal the ruling.
The leader of immigration lawyers likes the ruling
Friday’s decision “was a breath of fresh air coming from this court and a serious blow” to state GOP officials like Paxton, said David Leopold, legal counsel for America’s Voice, an advocacy organization immigration reform and former president of the American. Immigration Lawyers Association.
“For the past three years, Republican governors and attorneys general, led by the recently indicted Ken Paxton of Texas, have attempted to take control of the federal immigration system,” he said. Their goal is to “create immigration chaos and destroy any kind of immigration policy in this country.”
Leopold said he agreed with Moody that Congress must act now to update the nation’s immigration policy “to meet the economic needs of the United States.” But expect litigation to continue to come from GOP-led states over immigration policy because the issue generates intense interest among right-wing voters.
“Republicans have nothing to run with in 2024, and immigration and the border are how they raise their base,” he said. “They’re going to continue to go to court to try to block any kind of policy that the Biden administration does to try to make a broken immigration system work until Congress fixes it.”
On Monday, DeSantis will return to the Texas border where he will announce his policy proposal for managing the US-Mexico border.
Kavanaugh was joined in the majority opinion by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the court’s three liberal members, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil M. Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett voted with the majority, but did not adopt his reason. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote a dissent in which he suggested the ruling gives the executive branch too much discretion in applying the law.
“Simply put, Congress enacted a law requiring the arrest and detention of certain illegal immigrants whose release, it believed, would endanger public safety,” Alito wrote. “The DHS Secretary disagrees with this categorical requirement. He prefers a more flexible policy.”
