In an 8-1 decision with Kavanaugh writing the opinion, the Supreme Court ruled that states like Ken Paxton’s Texas do not have legal standing to interfere with the Biden administration’s immigration enforcement policies.
The last month has been tough for Ken Paxton. On May 27, the fiery MAGA politician was impeached by the Texas House on corruption charges and suspended from his duties as attorney general pending a September trial by the state senate. And now the U.S. Supreme Court has dismissed one of Paxton’s signature lawsuits challenging the Biden administration’s immigration policies on grounds that states don’t have legal standing to boss the federal government around on its enforcement priorities.
In a 8-1 decision with Justice Brett Kavanaugh writing the majority opinion, the Court was clear and definitive in defending the administration’s prosecutorial discretion against a challenge from the likes of Paxton:
The States essentially want the Federal Judiciary to order the Executive Branch to alter its arrest policy so as to make more arrests. But this Court has long held “that a citizen lacks standing to contest the policies of the prosecuting authority when he himself is neither prosecuted nor threatened with prosecution.
