Cite as: 599 U. S. ____ (2023)
7
Syllabus
dian parents who seek to adopt or foster an Indian child. But the individual petitioners have not shown that this injury is “likely” to be “redressed by judicial relief.” TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U. S. ___, ___. They seek an injunction preventing the federal parties from enforcing ICWA and a declaratory judgment that the challenged provisions are unconstitutional. Yet enjoining the federal parties would not remedy the alleged injury, because state courts apply the placement preferences, and state agencies carry out the court-ordered placements. §§1903(1), 1915(a), (b). The state officials who implement ICWA are “not parties to the suit, and there is no reason they should be obliged to honor an incidental legal determination the suit produced.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 569 (plurality opinion). Petitioners’ request for a declaratory judgment suffers from the same flaw. The individual petitioners insist that state courts are likely to defer to a federal court’s interpretation of federal law, thus giving rise to a substantial likelihood that a favorable judgment will redress their injury. But such a theory would mean redressability would be satisfied whenever a decision might persuade actors who are not before the court—contrary to Article III’s strict prohibition on “issuing advisory opinions.” Carney v. Adams, 592 U. S. ___, ___. It is a federal court’s judgment, not its opinion, that remedies an injury. The individual petitioners can hope for nothing more than an opinion, so they cannot satisfy Article III. Pp. 29–32.
(b) Texas has no equal protection rights of its own, South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 323, and it cannot assert equal protection claims on behalf of its citizens against the Federal Government, Alfred L. Snapp & Son, Inc. v. Puerto Rico ex rel. Barez, 458 U. S. 592, 610, n. 16. The State’s creative arguments for why it has standing despite these settled rules also fail. Texas’s argument that ICWA requires it to “break its promise to its citizens that it will be colorblind in child-custody proceedings,” Reply Brief for Texas 15, 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. 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. But these alleged costs are not “fairly traceable” to the placement preferences, which “operate independently” of the provisions Texas identifies. California v. Texas, 593 U. S. ___, ___. Texas would continue to incur the complained-of costs even if it were relieved of the duty to apply the placement preferences. Because Texas is not injured by the placement preferences, neither would it be injured by a tribal resolution that altered those preferences pursuant to §1915(c). Texas therefore does not have standing to bring either its
