Trump v. New York - 141 S. Ct. 530 (2020)

Rule:

Two related doctrines of justiciability - each originating in the case-or-controversy requirement of Article III - underlie the determination as to whether an actual controversy exists. First, a plaintiff must demonstrate standing, including an injury that is concrete, particularized, and imminent rather than conjectural or hypothetical. Second, the case must be ripe - not dependent on contingent future events that may not occur as anticipated, or indeed may not occur at all.

Facts:

President Donald Trump issued a memorandum to the Secretary of Commerce respecting the apportionment following the 2020 census. The memorandum announced a policy of excluding from the apportionment base aliens who were not in a lawful immigration status. To facilitate implementation to the maximum extent feasible and consistent with the discretion delegated to the executive branch, the President ordered the Secretary, in preparing his §141(b) report, to provide information permitting the President, to the extent practicable, to exercise the President’s discretion to carry out the policy. The President directed the Secretary to include such information in addition to a tabulation of population according to the criteria promulgated by the Census Bureau for counting each State’s residents. Subsequently, various States, local governments, organizations, and individuals, brought cases to challenge the President’s memorandum. The district court held that the plaintiffs had standing to proceed in federal court because the memorandum was chilling aliens and their families from responding to the census, thereby degrading the quality of census data used to allocate federal funds and forcing some plaintiffs to divert resources to combat the chilling effect. According to the district court, the memorandum violated §141(b) by ordering the Secretary to produce two sets of numbers—a valid tabulation derived from the census, and an invalid tabulation excluding aliens based on administrative records outside the census. The district court declared the memorandum unlawful and enjoined the Secretary from including the information needed to implement the memorandum in his §141(b) report to the President. The Government appealed. 

Issue:

Under the circumstances, could the district court take cognizance of the plaintiffs’ complaint? 

Answer:

No.

Conclusion:

The judgment of the federal district court was vacated, and the case was remanded with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. The Court concluded that the case - at this time - did not present a dispute appropriately resolved through the judicial process. At present, the case was riddled with contingencies and speculation that impede judicial review. Although the President has made clear his desire to exclude aliens without lawful status from the apportionment base, the President qualified his directive by providing that the Secretary should gather information to the extent practicable and that aliens should be excluded to the extent feasible. Any prediction how the Executive Branch might eventually implement this general statement of policy was no more than conjecture at this time.