STORY: The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday awarded Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration a pair of legal victories on the contentious topic of immigration.
By an eight-to-one majority the justices gave a green light for the government to move ahead with plans to shift immigration enforcement toward public safety threats.
Biden’s policy prioritized apprehending and deporting non-U.S. citizens deemed to pose a threat to national security, public safety or border security, giving agents more discretion to consider individual circumstances.
It reflected an effort by Biden to recalibrate immigration policy after the hardline approach of his predecessor, Republican Donald Trump, who sought to expand the range of immigrants subject to arrest and removal.
But Republican attorneys general in two states, Texas and Louisiana, sued to block Biden’s shift.
They argued that they would be harmed by having to spend more money on law enforcement and social services due to an increase in non-U.S. citizens present within their borders.
The justices agreed with Biden’s administration that the states lacked standing to sue, because they have not suffered direct harm from the policy.
In a separate ruling, the court upheld a federal law criminalizing efforts to encourage illegal immigration. The case arose after a California man was convicted of luring immigrants to enter the U.S. illegally with false promises of a path to citizenship.
The defendant’s attorneys argued the law was an overly-broad and unconstitutional limit on speech. The Justice department said the law targeted only those facilitating illegal conduct.
A majority of justices agreed, by a seven-to-two margin.
The issue of immigration could figure prominently in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, with Biden expected to seek a second term in office and Trump, who is currently the frontrunner for his party’s nomination.
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