US Supreme Court upholds Biden’s deportation priorities

In a Landmark Ruling, Supreme Court Upholds Biden’s Deportation Priorities

In a majority ruling, the Supreme Court of the United States decided this Friday in favor of the Joe Biden government and maintained the deportation priorities set in 2021, focused on those undocumented individuals who have committed serious crimes.

States Lack Power to Challenge Federal Immigration Decisions

The highest court of justice, in response to a lawsuit filed by Texas and Louisiana, both governed by Republicans, ruled 8-1 that the states do not have the power to challenge such decisions made by the federal government when it comes to managing federal issues, such as immigration law.

Biden’s Priorities Aim to Enhance Security

The deportation priorities announced by Biden in 2021, shortly after taking control of the White House, prioritize national, public, and border security, targeting only those foreigners with serious criminal histories.

Plaintiffs Argue Government’s Failure to Enforce Deportation Orders

The plaintiffs had argued that the government was breaking the law by failing to arrest and remove any foreigner with a valid deportation order from the country.

Supreme Court Ruling Leaves Biden’s Hands Free

The sentence gives Biden an important victory against two Republican-governed states that fiercely oppose the president’s immigration policy, based on the recovery of immigration due process and dismantling the ‘zero tolerance’ immigration policy of former President Donald Trump.

The plaintiffs had argued that Biden’s deportation priorities, determined based on the reasonable use of available resources, conflicted with immigration law. But the Supreme Court said that the states did not have the standing or the power to sue.

“The ruling maintains prosecutorial discretion to implement certain aspects of immigration law. The government has the discretion to protect certain immigrants from deportation and not deport them immediately, freeze the cases or close them in the Immigration Court (EOIR),” said Alex Gálvez, an immigration attorney practicing in Los Angeles, California.

It is important to keep in mind that “the Biden administration never said that it was not going to deport any undocumented immigrant, but rather focused on those who have criminal records that threaten the security of the United States and Americans,” he added.

Gálvez further said that the Supreme Court’s 8-1 decision “is impressive.”

Data on Supreme Court’s Ruling on Biden’s Deportation Priorities

In the court’s opinion, Judge Kavanaugh wrote that the plaintiff states (Texas and Louisiana) had filed “an extraordinarily unusual claim.”

“They want a federal court to order the Executive Branch to modify its arrest policies to make more arrests. Federal courts have traditionally not considered that type of trial; in fact, the States do not cite precedents for a lawsuit like this,” explained the magistrate.

For his part, Justice Neil Gorsuch, along with Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett, wrote a concurring opinion concluding that the states also lacked reasoning, but for reasons other than the majority opinion.

Judge Samuel Alito was the only one of the nine magistrates who dissented.

At the center of the legal battle was a memorandum from the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Alejandro Mayorkas, dated September 2021, where the government’s deportation priorities are established.

Unlike the previous government, which put 12 million undocumented immigrants on the deportation bench, Biden only focused on those with serious criminal records and who constitute a threat to the national and public security of the United States.

The Supreme Court Takes on the Case

In late November of last year, the Supreme Court began reviewing Biden’s deportation priorities. Four months earlier, in July, the highest court of justice did not allow the Administration to implement the new protocol announced at the end of September 2021, but the decision was frozen at the national level until the magistrates reviewed the policy.

Biden’s priorities replaced the priorities dictated by former President Trump, who, in addition to criminalizing undocumented stay, granted extraordinary powers to immigration agents to deport even foreigners accused of committing crimes and whose cases had not been resolved by the courts of justice.

The deportation priorities were sued by Texas and Louisiana, who claimed the government changed immigration law without authorization from Congress. Then-Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argued that aliens with a final order of removal are criminals who should be removed from the country.

In the brief filed with the Supreme Court, the Texas attorney general’s office noted that “these categories of dangerous criminal aliens had initially been required to be detained” to address “increasing rates of criminal activity by aliens.”

Texas urged the Supreme Court to order the government to “detain criminal illegal aliens,” including all those with final orders of removal.

The Deportation Priorities Memorandum

At the end of September 2021, Mayorkas reiterated that being undocumented in the United States “does not condemn” the immigrant to be deported from the country.

In the document, sent to the security and border chiefs of the different agencies under his command, Mayorkas said that the fact that someone is an undocumented immigrant “should not be the only basis” for the decision to detain and expel them from the United States.

“We set civil immigration enforcement priorities to achieve our objectives in the most effective manner with the resources we have,” the document read.

Mayorkas wrote that “we will prioritize the detention and removal of non-citizens who are a threat to our national security, public safety, and border security.” The Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents that they should not attempt to arrest and deport farmworkers, the elderly, and others who were vulnerable to deportation under the Trump administration.

During the Trump administration, DHS relied on a harsh deportation priority list that included immigrants accused of crimes, even if the cases had not yet been decided by the courts.

Trump also decreed that the undocumented presence constituted a threat to national and public security and granted extraordinary powers to immigration agents to deport undocumented immigrants solely for the fact that they did not have legal permission to stay in the country.

Biden’s Deportation Priorities