Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-58_i425.pdf
Page Number: 55.0

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

13 

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 in-
terpretation” of the law “even though they would not be di-
rectly bound by such a determination.”  Id., at 803 (opinion 
of O’Connor, J.).6  Here, we need not speculate about how 
DHS officers would respond to vacatur of the Final Memo-
randum because the District Court found that the DHS per-
sonnel responsible for detainers were rescinding them “be-
cause 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 Memo-
randum was needed to guide prosecutorial discretion, Ap-
plication 38–39, and if the District Court’s order were inef-
fectual, that would not be true.  For these reasons, the harm 
resulting from the Final Memorandum is redressed by set-
ting aside the Final Memorandum.

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

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