Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-954_7l48.pdf
Page Number: 52

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

19 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

district court decision; second, take a purportedly “new” ac-
tion that achieves the same result as the one previously set 
aside; and third, while declining to seek vacatur of the ear-
lier judgment in the district court, ask the court of appeals
to vacate that judgment without reviewing its correctness 
or the lawfulness of the second action.  The Court of Appeals
was correct to view this as an effort to thwart the normal 
appellate process. 

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While I would affirm the Fifth Circuit if we reached the 
merits, I agree with the majority that the District Court on
remand  should  consider  in  the  first  instance  whether  the 
October  29  Memoranda  complied  with  §706  of  the  APA.
The  District  Court  should  assess,  among  other  things,
whether it is “arbitrary and capricious” for DHS to refuse 
to use its contiguous-territory return authority to avoid vi-
olations of the statute’s clear detention mandate; whether 
the deterrent effect that DHS found MPP produced in re-
ducing  dangerous  attempted  illegal  border  crossings,  as
well as MPP’s reduction of unmeritorious asylum claims, is 
adequately accounted for in the agency’s new decision; and 
whether DHS’s rescission of MPP is causing it to make pa-
role decisions on an unlawful categorical basis rather than
case-by-case, as the statute prescribes.