Supreme Court might review immigration decision
The Justice Department on Tuesday said it would ask the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court’s decision that has halted one of the administration’s signature programs granting work permits to nearly 5 million people here illegally and shielding them from deportation.
Department spokesman Patrick Rodenbush said it would try to quickly resolve the litigation so immigration authorities could prioritize “the removal of the worst offenders, not people who have long ties to the United States and who are raising American children.”
“The department disagrees with the Fifth Circuit’s adverse ruling and intends to seek further review from the Supreme Court of the United States,” he said.
The statement comes a day after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, considered one of the nation’s most conservative benches, ruled against the administration’s appeal to allow the program to go forward, saying a lawsuit brought by Texas and 25 other states was justified. Writing for the majority, Judge Jerry E. Smith found Texas established it could be harmed by new costs for issuing driver’s licenses to immigrants and that the program undercuts Congress.
Gov. Greg Abbott, who as attorney general brought the lawsuit shortly after President Barack Obama announced the program last November, hailed the ruling, calling it a “vindication for the rule of law and the Constitution.”
“The president’s job is to enforce the immigration laws, not rewrite them,” Abbott said in a statement.
The administration has argued it has the ability to decide which of the nearly 11 million immigrants here
“The majority held that the immigration statute doesn’t confer the power the administration is claiming. That flies in the face of several Supreme Court precedents granting the executive branch broad, almost unlimited, power on immigration policy issues.” Stephen Yale-Loehr, Cornell University Law School professor
illegally it should prioritize deporting as it’s impossible to remove them all.
The new program, intended as one of Obama’s legacy reforms, followed a similar 2012 initiative granting work permits to certain youth here illegally.
Lawyers for the administration and immigrant advocates had been expecting Monday night’s decision to go against Obama because two of the three judges, Smith and Jennifer Walker Elrod, are Republican appointees who earlier this year had also ruled against the president in the case.
On Tuesday, proponents for the program said they were disappointed by the decision but relieved it came in time for the Supreme Court to take up the case if it chooses.
Advocates had worried the delay in deciding the case, which was argued in July, would prevent the higher court from considering it in the spring.
The dissenter on the three-judge panel, Judge Carolyn King, agreed the ruling had been unreasonably stalled and called the decision a “mistake.”
“That mistake has been exacerbated by the extended delay that has occurred in deciding this ‘expedited’ appeal,” wrote King, an appointee of President Jimmy Carter.
Stephen Yale-Loehr, a Cornell University Law School professor who specializes in immigration, said the appeals court also held that the administration failed to follow procedural formalities in making its changes to the immigration system and that it lacked the legal authority to do so.
“The majority held that the immigration statute doesn’t confer the power the administration is claiming. That flies in the face of several Supreme Court precedents granting the executive branch broad, almost unlimited, power on immigration policy issues,” Yale-Loehr wrote in an email. “That may make it more likely that the Supreme Court will want to hear” the government’s appeal.