The supreme court will not allow the Biden administration to implement an immigration policy that prioritizes deportation of people arriving in the US illegally who pose the greatest public safety risk.
The court’s order late on Thursday leaves the policy frozen nationwide for now. The vote was 5-4, with conservative Amy Coney Barrett joining liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and newcomer to the bench Ketanji Brown Jackson in saying they would have allowed the Biden administration to put in place the guidance.
The court also announced it would hear arguments in the case, saying they would be in late November.
The order is the first public vote by Jackson since she was confirmed by the US Senate and joined the court on 30 June, following the retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer.
The justices were acting on the administration’s emergency request to the court following conflicting decisions by federal appeals courts over a September directive from the Department of Homeland Security that paused deportation unless individuals had committed acts of terrorism, espionage or “egregious threats to public safety.”
The federal appeals court in Cincinnati overturned a district judge’s order that put the policy on hold in a lawsuit filed by Arizona, Ohio and Montana.
But in a separate suit filed by Texas and Louisiana, a federal judge in Texas ordered a nationwide halt to the guidance and a federal appellate panel in New Orleans declined to step in.
The judge’s order amounted to a “nationwide, judicially-imposed overhaul of the executive branch’s enforcement priorities,” US solicitor general Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in a court filing.
In their supreme court filing, Texas and Louisiana argued that the administration’s guidance violates federal law that requires the detention of people who are in the US unlawfully and who have been convicted of serious crimes.
The states said they would face added costs of having to detain people the federal government might allow to remain free inside the United States, despite their criminal records.
The guidance, issued after Joe Biden became president, updated a Trump-era policy that removed people regardless of criminal history or community ties.
