Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-58_i425.pdf
Page Number: 60.0

18 

UNITED STATES v. TEXAS 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

tive Branch’s . . . enforcement choices” regarding third par-
ties.  Ante, at 7. 

Just last Term in Biden v. Texas, two States argued that
their spending on the issuance of driver’s licenses and the 
provision of healthcare for illegal immigrants sufficed to es-
tablish Article III standing and thus enabled them to sue to 
compel  enforcement  of  a  detain-or-return  mandate.  See 
Texas  v.  Biden,  20  F. 4th  928,  970–971  (CA5  2021).    The 
Court of Appeals held that the States had standing, ibid., 
and  the  majority  in  this  Court,  despite  extended  engage-
ment with other jurisdictional questions, never hinted that 
Article III precluded the States’ suit.  597 U. S., at ___–___ 
(slip op., at 8–12).

If the new rule adopted by the Court in this case is sound, 
these decisions and others like them were all just wasted
ink.  I understand that what we have called “ ‘drive-by ju-
risdictional  rulings’ ”  are  not  precedents,  see  Arbaugh  v. 
Y &  H  Corp.,  546  U. S.  500,  511  (2006),  but  the  Court 
should not use a practice of selective silence to accept or re-
ject  prominently  presented  standing  arguments  on  incon-
sistent grounds. 

B 

Examination of the precedents the majority invokes only 
underscores the deficiencies in its analysis.8  The majority
says that the “leading precedent” supporting its holding is 
Linda R. S. v. Richard D., 410 U. S. 614 (1973).  Ante, at 5. 
But as JUSTICE BARRETT notes, this Court has already de-
finitively explained that the suit to compel prosecution in 
Linda R. S. was rejected “because of the unlikelihood that 

—————— 

8 The Court also appeals to “historical experience” and “longstanding 
historical practice.”  Ante, at 6, 14 (internal quotation marks omitted).  I 
do not take this to be an argument independent from the case law cited, 
since no history is discussed apart from those cases (all but one from after 
1964).