United States v. Texas
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Texas and Louisiana cannot bring this lawsuit, because federal courts have no tradition of ordering the executive branch to change its arrest or prosecution policies at a third party's request.
The decision preserves the president's broad authority to set immigration enforcement priorities and leaves states without a judicial remedy when they believe the federal government is ignoring mandatory-detention laws — though the Court took no position on whether any law was actually being broken.
How it got here: Texas and Louisiana sued DHS in federal district court; after a bench trial, the district court vacated the guidelines; the Fifth Circuit declined to stay that judgment; the Supreme Court granted certiorari before the Fifth Circuit ruled on the merits.
The Case in Depth
What happened
After President Biden took office in 2021, the Department of Homeland Security issued new guidelines prioritizing the arrest and removal of noncitizens who were suspected terrorists, dangerous criminals, or recent border crossers. Texas and Louisiana argued these guidelines violated federal statutes they read as requiring the mandatory arrest of certain noncitizens upon release from criminal custody or after a final removal order, forcing the states to bear added costs for supervision and social services.
The question before the Court
Can states sue the federal government to force immigration officials to arrest more noncitizens under detention laws the states believe are being ignored?
The Court's answer
No — Texas and Louisiana cannot bring this lawsuit. The Court ruled that states lack legal standing to ask federal courts to order the executive branch to make more arrests or pursue more prosecutions. Although the states proved real financial costs caused by the federal government's immigration enforcement choices, those costs are not the kind of injury courts have traditionally been asked to address — there is no historical precedent for ordering the executive to change its arrest policies at a third party's request.
The Court noted five narrow circumstances in which a similar lawsuit might proceed — for instance, if Congress explicitly authorized such suits, if the executive completely abandoned its enforcement duties, or if a policy did more than just set arrest priorities — but none applied here. The Court expressly declined to decide whether the executive branch was actually violating the immigration detention statutes at issue.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
States harmed by federal immigration non-enforcement cannot use federal courts to compel more arrests, even when Congress has written what looks like a mandatory detention law. Practically, this means executive branch enforcement guidelines like these are insulated from state-initiated judicial challenge, and states must rely on Congress — through funding, oversight, or legislation — rather than lawsuits to press for stricter enforcement.
What changes now
Because Texas and Louisiana lacked standing, the district court never had jurisdiction, and its judgment vacating the Biden administration's immigration enforcement guidelines is reversed. Those guidelines may now remain in effect. The Court's ruling does not resolve whether the executive branch was violating the immigration detention statutes, leaving that question open. Congress retains oversight, appropriations, and legislative tools to address federal enforcement priorities, and future plaintiffs might sue under any of the five narrow exceptions the Court identified.
What this does not decide
The Court expressly took no position on whether the Biden administration was actually violating 8 U.S.C. §1226(c) or §1231(a)(2). The ruling also does not hold that a president can freely ignore any statutory mandate — only that states cannot use federal courts to compel more arrests under these circumstances. Five specific scenarios where standing might exist remain unresolved.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Gorsuch
Justice Gorsuch agreed that the states lack standing but diagnosed the problem as redressability, not a missing 'judicially cognizable interest.' In his view, 8 U.S.C. §1252(f)(1) bars lower courts from enjoining immigration enforcement, and the district court's APA vacatur order would not actually compel officials to change how they exercise prosecutorial discretion. He also raised serious questions about whether the APA's 'set aside' language even authorizes courts to issue universal vacatur of agency action — a practice he argued is inconsistent with traditional party-specific remedies and separation of powers.
Concurrence — Justice Barrett
Justice Barrett agreed the states lack standing on redressability grounds but wrote separately to object to the majority's reliance on Linda R. S. v. Richard D. as the 'leading precedent.' She argued Linda R. S. was actually a redressability case — the plaintiff lacked standing because prosecution of the child's father was unlikely to produce child-support payments — and that the majority reads it too broadly to create a novel rule about cognizable injuries. She would have resolved the case on familiar redressability principles without weaving in Article II and Heckler v. Chaney as constitutional standing rules.
Dissent — Justice Alito
Justice Alito would have found Texas had standing under the standard three-part test. The district court made detailed factual findings — after a bench trial — of concrete, traceable, and redressable financial harm. The majority, he argued, misuses Linda R. S., sidesteps Massachusetts v. EPA, and creates an unprecedented rule insulating executive non-enforcement from judicial review, improperly inflating presidential power at the expense of Congress's authority to write mandatory enforcement statutes. In his view, when Congress commands 'shall,' the Constitution does not give the president power to disobey unless Congress wins a political test of strength.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court asked whether the states had Article III standing — the constitutional requirement that plaintiffs must show an injury in fact that is not just real and traceable but also 'judicially cognizable,' meaning it is the kind of harm that federal courts have traditionally been asked to remedy. History and precedent guide that inquiry.
- The controlling precedent, Linda R. S. v. Richard D. (1973), established that a party lacks standing to challenge a government body's decision not to prosecute or arrest another person, because American law has never recognized a 'judicially cognizable interest in the prosecution or nonprosecution of another.' The Court reaffirmed that this principle remains good law.
- Three structural reasons reinforce why courts have not historically entertained these suits: the executive's decision not to arrest someone does not exercise coercive power over the plaintiff's liberty; the President's Article II constitutional authority to 'take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed' gives the executive branch broad discretion to decide how aggressively to enforce the law; and courts lack workable standards for reviewing enforcement-priority decisions shaped by resource constraints and shifting public-safety needs.
- The states argued their quantified financial costs — paying for supervision and services for noncitizens who should have been held in federal custody — satisfied standing requirements. The Court held that even proven monetary harm does not create standing when the type of suit has no precedent in history or law, as is the case for suits demanding more arrests.
- The Court carved out five potential exceptions to this general rule — selective-prosecution defenses, congressional authorization of specific suits, complete abandonment of enforcement duties, policies that both set priorities and confer legal benefits or status, and detention (as opposed to pure arrest) policies — but concluded that none of those circumstances was present here, making this a narrow holding confined to arrest-and-prosecution priority policies.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Linda R. S. v. Richard D. (410 U.S. 614)
Reaffirmed as the controlling rule that parties lack standing to compel arrests or prosecutions of others.
Distinguishes Massachusetts v. EPA (549 U.S. 497)
Distinguished as involving a petition for rulemaking, not a challenge to the executive's arrest and prosecution discretion.