Texas lost key immigration cases

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton failed in every one of his attempts to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to halt President Joe Biden’s immigration policies. But the Texas Republican’s repeated losses might have actually helped clear the way for President-elect Donald Trump to roll out an immigration crackdown that includes mass deportations, detention of migrant families and more. The Texas losses underscore how little appetite the high court has for challenges to presidential authority on immigration matters. Some immigration law experts say the rulings against Texas during Biden’s term could make it more difficult for blue states to try and stop Trump’s crackdown in the courts. The Texas losses “dramatically softened the ground that President Trump has to work with,” said Leon Fresco, an immigration attorney based in D.C.

That is not to say that Democratic-led states and advocacy groups will not turn to the courts to challenge Trump’s immigration policies, as they did repeatedly during his first term, hampering his efforts to institute a travel ban, restrict asylum and force migrants to wait in Mexico while their cases were considered in the U.S. “I wouldn’t be surprised if litigation ends up being a smaller part of immigration advocacy in this administration,” Cabot said. “They’ve been signaling pretty strongly on these issues.” Paxton’s office did not respond to a request for comment. States could now have a harder time showing they have standing to sue in some cases after Texas’ unsuccessful bid to block Biden’s immigration enforcement priorities. When the Democrat took office, he limited U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation targets to just those seen as threats to national security, public safety or border security. Texas and Louisiana sued, arguing in part that the narrower scope would drive up their costs for law enforcement, education and health care, because the federal government was not deporting more immigrants.