Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-366_7647.pdf
Page Number: 10.0

Cite as:  592 U. S. ____ (2020) 

3 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

A 

Begin  with  the  threatened  injury.  The  plaintiffs  allege 
two forms of future injury: a loss of representation in the 
apportionment count and decreased federal funding tied to 
the  census  totals.  For  an  injury  to  satisfy  Article  III,  it 
“must  be  concrete  and  particularized  and  actual  or  immi-
nent,  not  conjectural  or  hypothetical.”  Susan  B.  Anthony 
List v. Driehaus, 573 U. S. 149, 157 (2014) (quoting Lujan 
v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 560 (1992); internal 
quotation  marks  omitted).  We  have  long  said  that  when
plaintiffs “demonstrate a realistic danger of sustaining a di-
rect  injury  as  a  result  of  [a  policy’s]  operation  or  enforce-
ment,” they need “ ‘not have to await the consummation of 
threatened injury to obtain preventive relief.  If the injury 
is certainly impending, that is enough.’ ”  Babbitt v. Farm 
Workers, 442 U. S. 289, 298 (1979) (quoting Pennsylvania v. 
West Virginia, 262 U. S. 553, 593 (1923)). 

Here,  inquiry  into  the  threatened  injury  is  unusually 
straightforward.  The harm is clear on the face of the policy.
The title of the Presidential memorandum reads: “Exclud-
ing Illegal Aliens From the Apportionment Base Following 
the 2020 Census.”  85 Fed. Reg. 44679 (2020) (Presidential
memorandum).  That memorandum announces “the policy
of the United States [shall be] to exclude from the appor-
tionment base aliens who are not in a lawful immigration 
status . . . to the maximum extent feasible and consistent 
with the discretion delegated to the executive branch.”  Id., 
at 44680.  Notwithstanding the “contingencies and specula-
tion”  that  “riddl[e]”  this  case,  ante,  at  4  (opinion  of  the
Court),  the  Government  has  not  backed  away  from  its 
stated aim to exclude aliens without lawful status from ap-
portionment.  See  Brief  for  United  States  14  (urging  that
the Secretary “be allowed to implement the Memorandum, 
at  which  point  suit  can  be  brought”);  see  also  Virginia  v. 
American Booksellers Assn., Inc., 484 U. S. 383, 393 (1988) 
(finding standing where “plaintiffs have alleged an actual