The Supreme Court gives Biden a borderline victory
Supreme Court gives Biden a victory at the border: Judges decide to let the government determine which migrants to deport based on their threat to the public
- The Supreme Court gave President Biden a victory in immigration policy
- Ruled in favor of his policies allowing for deportation of migrants if they posed a threat
- States argued that all migrants should be immediately deported
The Supreme Court on Friday gave President Joe Biden’s administration the go-ahead to move forward with guidelines shifting immigration enforcement to countering threats to public safety, handing him a victory over the politically controversial issue in a legal battle with Texas and Louisiana.
The ruling allows the administration to move forward with its policy of prioritizing the deportation of immigrants deemed to pose the greatest risk to public safety.
The judges rejected a challenge from Republican-led states to a policy that, the administration said, recognizes there is not enough money or manpower to deport all of the approximately 11 million people illegally residing in the United States.
The states had argued that federal immigration law requires authorities to detain and deport even those who pose little or no risk.
The Supreme Court gave President Biden a victory in immigration policy
Friday’s decision was 7-1, with Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. the only dissenter.
“The United States has filed an extremely unusual lawsuit,” Judge Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority. “They want a federal court to order the executive branch to change its arrest policy to make more arrests. Federal courts traditionally don’t deal with those kinds of lawsuits; indeed, the States cite no precedent for a lawsuit like this.’
At the center of the case is a September 2021 directive from the Department of Homeland Security that stopped deportations unless individuals had committed acts of terrorism, espionage or “serious threats to public safety.”
The guidelines, issued after Joe Biden became president, updated a Trump-era policy of illegally removing people in the country regardless of their criminal past or ties to the community.
Trump had tried to increase the number of immigrants arrested and deported.
Biden’s policy prioritized arresting and deporting non-U.S. citizens who pose a threat to national security, public safety or border security, giving officers more freedom to consider individual circumstances.
A group of migrants wait in line after arriving from Texas outside the Port Authority Bus Terminal to receive humanitarian aid in New York
Republicans have criticized Biden as weak on immigration policies, saying his policies, including fewer detentions and deportations, have encouraged more illegal border crossings.
The issue of immigration could play a prominent role in the 2024 presidential election, with Biden expected to seek a second term and Trump running for his party’s nomination.
U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton ruled in favor of Texas and Louisiana in June 2022, suspending the policy nationwide. Tipton was appointed by Trump. The Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 the following month not to block Tipton’s ruling, which stopped the guidelines.
Announcing the new guidelines in 2021, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas cited the long-standing practice of government officials exercising discretion in deciding who should be subject to deportation, saying that most immigrants subject to deportation “have been for years members of our communities contribute’.
The administration has said US officials have long relied on setting enforcement priorities, as an estimated 11 million immigrants live in the country illegally.
Texas and Louisiana argued that they would be harmed if they had to spend more money on law enforcement and social services because of an increase in non-U.S. citizens within their borders.
Workers are building a new wall along the southernmost part of the US-Mexico border
The Supreme Court ruled for President Biden 7-1, with Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. the only dissenter
The Biden administration argued that the two states lacked the proper legal standing to continue the lawsuit because they suffered no direct harm as a result of the policy.
During Biden’s first year in office, illegal arrests and deportations of immigrants in the United States dropped compared to previous years. In the fiscal year ending September 30, 2021, deportations fell to 59,000 compared to 186,000 the previous year. In the fiscal year ending September 30, 2022, the number of such deportations was 72,000.