Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-58_i425.pdf
Page Number: 10

Cite as:  599 U. S. ____ (2023) 

7 

Opinion of the Court 

U. S.,  at  760–761.    The  Executive  Branch—not  the 
Judiciary—makes arrests and prosecutes offenses on behalf 
of the United States.  See United States v. Nixon, 418 U. S. 
683,  693  (1974)  (“the  Executive  Branch  has  exclusive 
authority  and  absolute  discretion  to  decide  whether  to 
prosecute  a  case”);  Printz  v.  United  States,  521  U. S.  898, 
922–923 (1997) (Brady Act provisions held unconstitutional 
because,  among  other  things,  they  transferred  power  to 
execute  federal  law  to  state  officials);  United  States  v. 
Armstrong,  517  U. S.  456,  464  (1996)  (decisions  about
enforcement of “the Nation’s criminal laws” lie within the 
“special  province  of  the  Executive”  (internal  quotation 
marks omitted)); Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 138 (1976) 
(“A lawsuit is the ultimate remedy for a breach of the law, 
and it is to the President, and not to the Congress, that the 
Constitution entrusts the responsibility to ‘take Care that 
the  Laws  be  faithfully  executed’ ”  (quoting  U. S.  Const., 
Art. II,  §3));  see  also  United  States  v.  Cox,  342  F. 2d  167, 
171 (CA5 1965).

That principle of enforcement discretion over arrests and
prosecutions extends to the immigration context, where the 
Court  has  stressed  that  the  Executive’s  enforcement 
discretion  implicates  not  only  “normal  domestic  law 
enforcement priorities” but also “foreign-policy objectives.” 
Reno  v.  American-Arab  Anti-Discrimination  Comm.,  525 
U. S.  471,  490–491  (1999).    In  line  with  those  principles, 
this  Court  has  declared  that  the  Executive  Branch  also 
retains discretion over whether to remove a noncitizen from 
the United States.  Arizona v. United States, 567 U. S. 387, 
396  (2012)  (“Federal  officials,  as  an  initial  matter,  must 
decide whether it makes sense to pursue removal at all”). 

In  addition  to  the  Article  II  problems  raised by  judicial
review  of  the  Executive  Branch’s  arrest  and  prosecution
policies,  courts  generally  lack  meaningful  standards  for 
assessing the propriety of enforcement choices in this area.  
After  all,  the  Executive  Branch  must  prioritize  its