WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court threw out a lawsuit on Friday from Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio over President Barack Obama 's deportation relief, agreeing with a lower court that the hardline sheriff had no standing in this case to sue over undocumented immigrant policy.

The three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit panel -- two appointed by Obama and one by then-President George W. Bush -- unanimously upheld a lower court's decision to dismiss the case .

The point of the proceeding was simply to establish whether the Maricopa County sheriff could even bring his lawsuit, not to decide the issues he raised. Arpaio argued that Obama's policies suspending deportation for certain undocumented immigrants cause him and his county "harm" by driving up the number of unauthorized immigrants and thereby increasing crime, leading to more people in the local jail. He and his lawyer, Larry Klayman, claimed that this had already happened after the president began the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which Arpaio was seeking to stop along with a newer deportation reprieve program for parents.