Page:United States v. Texas (2023).pdf/55

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Cite as: 599 U. S. ____ (2023)
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Alito, J., dissenting

no injunctive relief can be awarded by any court, setting aside the Final Memorandum satisfies the redressability requirement. Our decision in Franklin v. Massachusetts, 505 U. S. 788 (1992), settles that question. There, the Court held that a declaratory judgment regarding the lawfulness of Executive Branch action satisfied redressability because “it [was] substantially likely that the President and other executive … officials would abide by an authoritative interpretation” of the law “even though they would not be directly bound by such a determination.” Id., at 803 (opinion of O’Connor, J.).[1] Here, we need not speculate about how DHS officers would respond to vacatur of the Final Memorandum because the District Court found that the DHS personnel responsible for detainers were rescinding them “because of” the Final Memorandum. 606 F. Supp. 3d, at 460. This point was effectively conceded by the Government’s application for an emergency stay pending our decision in this case. The Government argued that the Final Memorandum was needed to guide prosecutorial discretion, Application 38–39, and if the District Court’s order were ineffectual, that would not be true. For these reasons, the harm resulting from the Final Memorandum is redressed by setting aside the Final Memorandum.

As to the concurrence’s second argument—that the APA’s “set aside” language may not permit vacatur—the concurrence acknowledges that this would be a sea change in administrative law as currently practiced in the lower courts. Ante, at 16 (opinion of Gorsuch, J.); see, e.g., Data Marketing Partnership, LP v. United States Dept. of Labor, 45


  1. While only four of eight Justices finding standing in Franklin formally joined this explanation, see 505 U. S., at 824, n. 1 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment), the Court subsequently ratified this reasoning. See Utah v. Evans, 536 U. S. 452, 460, 463–464 (2002).