Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-58_i425.pdf
Page Number: 48

6 

UNITED STATES v. TEXAS 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

new law, Congress passed “transition rules [that] delayed 
the onset of the Secretary’s obligation to begin making ar-
rests as soon as covered aliens were released from criminal 
custody.”  Nielsen, 586 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 21).  If the 
Executive had possessed the discretion to decline to enforce 
the  new  mandates  in  light  of  “resource  constraints,”  see 
ante, at 8, those transition rules would have been entirely 
“superfluous.”  Nielsen, 586 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 21). 

Despite this clear text and background, the majority now 
claims  that  the  President’s  “enforcement  discretion”  sur-
vived these mandates, ante, at 7, but there is no basis for 
that conclusion.  Certainly it is not supported by the cases 
it cites.  They either underscore the general  rule that the 
Executive  possesses  enforcement  discretion,  see  Reno  v. 
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Comm., 525 U. S. 471, 
490–491 (1999), or pair that general rule with the observa-
tion that the States cannot limit the Government’s discre-
tion  in  pursuing  removal,  see  Arizona,  567  U. S.,  at  396, 
409.  Nothing in those decisions is inconsistent with Con-
gress’s power to displace executive discretion, and the fact
that  “five  Presidential  administrations”  sometimes  ne-
glected the mandates is likewise irrelevant.  See ante, at 8. 
As I have stressed before, the Executive cannot “acquire au-
thority forbidden by law through a process akin to adverse
possession,”  Biden  v.  Texas,  597  U. S.,  at  ___  (dissenting 
opinion) (slip op., at 15), and that is true even if the adverse
possession is bipartisan. 

B 
The events that gave rise to this case began on January 
20, 2021, when the Acting Secretary of DHS issued a mem-
orandum  with  “enforcement  priorities”  for  the  detention 
and removal of aliens found to be in this country illegally. 
This memorandum prioritized: (1) aliens “whose apprehen-
sion” implicated “national security,” (2) aliens not present 
“before November 1, 2020,” and (3) aliens due to be released