Page:Haaland v. Brackeen.pdf/41

Rh open and shut.

Yet Texas advances a few creative arguments for why it has standing despite these settled rules. It leads with what one might call an “unclean hands” injury: ICWA “injures Texas by requiring it to break its promise to its citizens that it will be colorblind in child-custody proceedings.” Reply Brief for Texas 15; id., at 14 (“ICWA forces Texas to violate its own constitutional obligations”). This is not the kind of “concrete” and “particularized” “invasion of a legally protected interest” necessary to demonstrate an “ ‘injury in fact.’ ” Lujan, 504 U. S., at 560. Were it otherwise, a State would always have standing to bring constitutional challenges when it is complicit in enforcing federal law. Texas tries to finesse this problem by characterizing ICWA as a “fiscal trap,” forcing it to discriminate against its citizens or lose federal funds. Brief for Petitioner Texas 39–40. But ICWA is not a Spending Clause statute—Texas bases this argument on a vague reference to a different Spending Clause statute that it does not challenge. And Texas has not established that those funds, which the State has accepted for years, are conditioned on compliance with the placement preferences anyway. See 42 U. S. C. §622; Brief for Federal Parties 49, n. 6.

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 terminating parental rights. Reply Brief for Texas 13–14. But these alleged costs are not