WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court handed Texas and Louisiana a temporary victory on Thursday, allowing a federal judge to block immigration enforcement guidelines issued by the Biden administration that it said allowed the release of undocumented immigrants with criminal records.
In a brief injunction, the court gave no reasons, which is typical when the judges act in an emergency, but it said it would appeal and hear the arguments this year.
Four judges disagreed: Judge Amy Comey Barrett and the three Liberal members. That included Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who recorded her first voice since she was sworn in last month.
The guidelines, issued in September, set priorities for deciding which immigrants should be arrested and deported, focusing on “national security, public safety and border security.” But they also gave immigration and customs authorities significant latitude to decide whether enforcement action was warranted.
The guidelines were part of an effort to reverse the Trump administration’s broad immigration arrest policy. The ruling is unlikely to drastically change the way ICE works, in part because the agency lacks the capacity to detain all migrants with criminal convictions. But it was yet another setback for the Biden administration on immigration, which has become a political liability as officials have struggled to contain the flow of migrants at the border and faced numerous lawsuits to try replace policies they have inherited.
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Biden administration officials have said it is necessary for ICE to prioritize in light of the fact that there are more than 11 million non-citizens in the United States and the federal government lacks the resources to support them. to arrest them all and try to evict them.
Texas and Louisiana filed suit to block the guidelines, which they say allowed many immigrants with criminal records to remain free while their cases progress, placing a burden on the states’ justice systems.
Judge Drew B. Tipton of federal court in Victoria, Texas, agreed and issued a ruling blocking use of the guidelines nationwide. A unanimous panel of three judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, declined to stay the ruling.
The panel said in an unsigned opinion that the Department of Homeland Security had given undue weight to policy considerations in a memorandum detailing the government’s approach.
“For example,” the panel wrote, “it determines that the guidelines are “essential to this administration’s stated commitment to promote equality for all, including people of color and others who have historically been disadvantaged, marginalized and negatively impacted by persistent poverty.” and inequality.'”
“DHS’s replacement of Congress’ statutory mandates with equality and race concerns is illegal, as such policy issues are clearly outside the purview of the powers conferred by immigration laws,” the panel wrote.
In a separate but nearly identical case brought by three other states — Arizona, Montana and Ohio — a unanimous three-member jury from the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati came to the opposite conclusion.
Chief Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton, who wrote for the panel, said the guidelines were consistent with previous administrations’ approaches. “Federal law gives the state government a lot of authority over immigration policy,” he wrote.
In an emergency request from the Supreme Court in the case brought by Texas and Louisiana, Attorney General Elizabeth B. Prelogar wrote that Judge Tipton’s ruling “will enhance DHS’s efforts to focus its limited resources on the non-citizens.” that pose the greatest threat to national security, public safety and the integrity of our country’s borders.”
Ms Prelogar also suggested that the court treat the suspension request as a request to hear the case before a final ruling in the lower courts. The unsigned warrant stated that the court would do so, with arguments for “the first week of the December 2022 argumentation session.”
Ms Prelogar had also suggested that the court could use the case to halt what she called “a troubling trend” of states suing the federal government.
“For most of our nation’s history, a lawsuit like this would have been unheard of,” wrote Ms. Prelogar, adding, “The courts did not allow states to sue the federal government on the basis of the indirect, downstream effects of federal policy.”
More recently, she wrote, such suits have become common. California has filed 122 lawsuits against the Trump administration, or about one every two weeks, she wrote, while Texas has sued the Biden administration 27 times, 11 of which involved immigration lawsuits.
Ms. Prelogar also questioned the nationwide scope of Judge Tipton’s ruling, saying it gave the three states in the other case “the relief they were denied by the Sixth Circuit in their own lawsuit.”
In response, attorneys from Texas and Louisiana wrote that the states suffered direct and concrete injuries that gave them the right to sue, adding that federal law required the government to detain immigrants allowed under its guidelines. be released.
Charlie Savage and Eileen Sullivan reporting contributed.
