As I mentioned this morning most recently, the Fifth Cir. had (unusually, since argument was already compete) asked for a primer on equitable remedies under federal immigration law, in favor of the feds. Tonight, both sides supplied just that.
The feds have given the Fifth Circuit exactly what it asked for — about the various ways the feds are allowed to seek equitable relief, in immigration matters — and the state of Texas is expressly prevented from seeking equitable relief, by raising state law claims, as against the feds — where immigration is involved.
As here. Feel free to read it all — it runs 20 pages.
But to be fair, I will link the state’s 30 page position… solely so it may be… duly mocked. It is not in any sense, an accurate telling of the applicable law (it can be safely ignored).
Let’s read from the feds, then, tonight:
…[E]ven if in one or more instances, Congress made express in statute what has long been clear from the Supreme Court’s case law — namely, that the United States may seek injunctive relief in federal court to protect its sovereign interests — that “belt-and-suspenders” drafting would not give rise to the inference that such statutory authorization would be necessary in every other case. See In re Coughlin, 33 F.4th 600, 609 (1st Cir. 2022) (citing Ethan J. Leib & James J. Brudney, The Belt-and-Suspenders Canon, 105 Iowa L. Rev. 735 (2020)).
Texas’s invocation of statutes from disparate contexts does nothing to support the idea that Congress has somehow displaced the equitable remedy that the United States has invoked in the circumstances of this case. The existence of comprehensive legislation in some areas does not displace background equity in others….
In short, Congress’s enactment of some statutes that include provisions expressly providing for the United States to seek equitable relief against violations in certain specified circumstances does not diminish the United States’ preexisting authority to vindicate its sovereign authority and interests by seeking an injunction. Here, the United States has done so by seeking an injunction to prevent the enforcement of a state statute that interferes with federal government’s administration of immigration law by intruding into a field that is exclusively occupied by the federal government and that conflicts with the standards and enforcement procedures under federal law.
The Court should affirm the preliminary injunction….
Texas has identified no fewer than 300 instances where the feds have the power to invoke equitable remedies against states, for violating federal law (just the same as here). It doesn’t require a new act of Congress to do so, each time. That’s just… silly.
Sure seems like Texas should just admit they are… wildly wrong, here.
But they won’t.
Onward.
Powerline Lies... 