This is a clear victory for the government of Joe Biden. The very conservative Supreme Court of the United States authorized him, Friday, June 23, to apply the priorities of his choice in terms of the expulsion of undocumented migrants. By a majority of eight judges out of nine, the court rejected for procedural reasons an appeal brought by the states of Texas and Louisiana, in the hands of elected Republicans.

This judgment allows the entry into force of a directive adopted in September 2021 by the Minister of Internal Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, which asked the immigration police (ICE) to focus their efforts on foreigners posing a terrorist threat or criminal, and those who arrived after November 1, 2020.

More than eleven million illegal immigrants live in the United States and there are not “the resources to arrest and deport each [of them]”, he had justified, taking the counter to former Republican President Donald Trump.

These new instructions were immediately challenged in court by Texas and Louisiana. The two states had pleaded that these measures would cause them additional costs in terms of education, police and social services. A federal judge ruled in their favor in June 2022 and blocked the implementation of this policy. Joe Biden’s government then turned to the Supreme Court, which finally agreed with him without going into the substantive arguments.

One of the main themes of the 2024 presidential campaign

“States wanted federal justice to order the executive branch to change its arrest policy to make more arrests,” but the Supreme Court has repeatedly clarified that only people subject to an arrest policy arrests could dispute it, says magistrate Brett Kavanaugh on behalf of the majority.

“In application of this fundamental principle (…), we conclude that the States do not have the standing to bring this complaint”, he adds. “The decision should not be understood as suggesting that the Executive has complete freedom” in the matter, he is careful to add, leaving the door open to future complaints.

Powerful civil rights group ACLU gloated that the Supreme Court “judiciously” rejected efforts by Texas and Louisiana to “force the government to put in place the most draconian policy possible” on expulsion.

The Republican Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, on the contrary, denounced on Twitter a “scandalous decision”. The Supreme Court is “giving the Biden administration carte blanche,” he wrote, promising to continue to deploy his state’s National Guard to turn back migrants at the border with Mexico.

Clandestine arrivals at the US southern border had hit all-time highs before immigration rules changed six weeks ago, and remain high – nearly 170,000 arrests in May. The subject is very divisive and should be one of the main themes of the 2024 presidential campaign.