my suspicion is that if Trump comes back and Family Separation Part 2 is in the cards, this will form the foundation of their legal argument-- nobody has a right to an intact family.
Before 1996, someone who’d been in the US without legal status for 10 yrs and met other criteria could get full legal status instead of deportation if deportation would cause them “extreme hardship.”
In 96, that was changed to “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” to a USC spouse or child.+
“Exceptional or extremely unusual” very much does NOT mean “family would be separated.” Often unspoken implication that in theory the whole family could just move to where the person was deported to. And disruption to, say, kids moving somewhere they don’t speak the language doesn’t count either.
That’s just one example. Or think of the tens of thousands of parents of USC kids deported during peak interior enforcement (~2007-2013).
I’m not gonna touch Muñoz in particular. But USG didn’t need a new SCOTUS decision to say family togetherness doesn’t outweigh the letter of immigration law.
