Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-376_7l48.pdf
Page Number: 7.0

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

7 

Syllabus 

dian parents who seek to adopt or foster an Indian child.  But the in-
dividual  petitioners  have not  shown  that  this  injury  is  “likely”  to  be
“redressed by judicial relief.”  TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U. S. 
___, ___.  They seek an injunction preventing the federal parties from 
enforcing ICWA and a declaratory judgment that the challenged pro-
visions are unconstitutional.  Yet enjoining the federal parties would 
not  remedy  the  alleged  injury,  because  state  courts  apply  the  place-
ment preferences, and state agencies carry out the court-ordered place-
ments.    §§1903(1),  1915(a),  (b).    The  state  officials  who  implement
ICWA are “not parties to the suit, and there is no reason they should
be  obliged  to  honor  an  incidental  legal  determination  the  suit  pro-
duced.”  Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 569 (plurality 
opinion).  Petitioners’ request for a declaratory judgment suffers from
the same flaw.  The individual petitioners insist that state courts are 
likely  to  defer  to  a  federal  court’s  interpretation  of  federal  law,  thus 
giving rise to a substantial likelihood that a favorable judgment will 
redress  their  injury.    But  such  a  theory  would  mean  redressability
would be satisfied whenever a decision might persuade actors who are 
not before the court—contrary to Article III’s strict prohibition on “is-
suing advisory opinions.”  Carney v. Adams, 592 U. S. ___, ___.  It is a 
federal court’s judgment, not its opinion, that remedies an injury.  The 
individual petitioners can hope for nothing more than an opinion, so 
they cannot satisfy Article III.  Pp. 29–32.

(b) Texas has no equal protection rights of its own, South Carolina 
v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 323, and it cannot assert equal protection
claims on behalf of its citizens against the Federal Government, Alfred 
L. Snapp & Son, Inc. v. Puerto Rico ex rel. Barez, 458 U. S. 592, 610, 
n. 16.  The State’s creative arguments for why it has standing despite
these settled rules also fail.  Texas’s argument that ICWA requires it
to “break its promise to its citizens that it will be colorblind in child-
custody proceedings,” Reply Brief for Texas 15, is not the kind of “con-
crete”  and  “particularized”  “invasion  of  a  legally  protected  interest”
necessary to demonstrate an injury in fact, Lujan, 504 U. S., at 560. 
Texas also claims a direct pocketbook injury associated with the costs 
of  keeping  records,  providing  notice  in  involuntary  proceedings,  and 
producing expert testimony before moving a child to foster care or ter-
minating parental rights.  But these alleged costs are not “fairly trace-
able” to the placement preferences, which “operate independently” of 
the provisions Texas identifies.  California v. Texas, 593 U. S. ___, ___. 
Texas would continue to incur the complained-of costs even if it were 
relieved of the duty to apply the placement preferences.  Because Texas 
is not injured by the placement preferences, neither would it be injured 
by  a  tribal  resolution  that  altered  those  preferences  pursuant  to
§1915(c).  Texas  therefore  does  not  have  standing  to  bring  either  its