United States v. Texas

In United States v. Texas, the Supreme Court addressed a challenge by Texas and Louisiana to a September 2021 memorandum issued by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The memorandum established enforcement priorities for immigration arrests and removals, focusing on noncitizens who posed threats to national security, public safety, or border security. The states argued that federal law mandates the detention of certain noncitizens and that the prioritization policy violated the Administrative Procedure Act. A federal district court in Texas vacated the memorandum nationwide. On June 23, 2023, the Supreme Court reversed in an 8-1 decision authored by Justice Kavanaugh, holding that the states lacked Article III standing to sue because courts traditionally do not review the Executive Branch’s exercise of prosecutorial discretion.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in favor of the United States, holding that the states lacked Article III standing to challenge the immigration enforcement prioritization memorandum. The Court vacated the lower court's nationwide injunction and remanded the case for further proceedings consistent with its opinion.

Whether Texas and Louisiana had Article III standing to challenge the federal government's immigration enforcement prioritization guidelines, and whether the Executive Branch has discretion to set priorities for immigration arrests and removals.

The ruling reinforced the federal executive branch's broad prosecutorial discretion in immigration enforcement, reaffirming that states generally cannot sue to compel the federal government to make more arrests or initiate more deportation proceedings. The decision was praised by immigrant rights advocates as protecting the administration's ability to focus resources on serious threats, while critics argued it left states without judicial recourse against perceived federal non-enforcement. The ruling also continued the Court's recent pattern of limiting nationwide injunctions and clarifying standing requirements in politically charged policy disputes.