WATCH ABOVE: U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder says the Department of Justice is still reviewing the decision by a Texas judge to issue an injunction blocking President Obama’s executive actions on immigration.
HOUSTON – The White House promised an appeal Tuesday after a federal judge in Texas temporarily blocked President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration and gave a coalition of 26 states time to pursue a lawsuit aiming to permanently stop the orders.
The ruling puts on hold Obama’s orders that could spare as many as five million people who are in the U.S. illegally from deportation. It came from U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, who once accused the Obama administration of participating in criminal conspiracies to smuggle children into the U.S. by helping reunite them with parents who live here illegally.
In response, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it would halt preparations for a program to protect parents of U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents until further notice.
WATCH ABOVE: Wednesday was supposed to be a historic day for millions of illegal immigrants. Now they’ll have to wait to see whether they can legally stay in the US. A federal judge has sided with more than two dozen states who contend the president overstepped when he pushed his immigration program through. Susan McGinnis reports.
The decision does not judge the merits of the case, but it is a blow to a key Obama initiative that infuriated Republicans.
In a statement, the White House defended the executive orders as within the president’s legal authority, saying the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress have said federal officials can establish priorities in enforcing immigration laws.
“The district court’s decision wrongly prevents these lawful, commonsense policies from taking effect,” the statement said.
The U.S. Department of Justice will appeal the ruling, the White House said.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department was reviewing the ruling and was confident the matter would ultimately be taken up by a higher court, possibly the U.S. Supreme Court.
“We have to look at this decision for what it is: It is a decision by one federal district court judge,” Holder said.
Obama took the sweeping measures November, saying he had to act because comprehensive, bilateral legislation to reform the country’s immigration system was stalled in the Republican-controlled House.
Republicans leaders said Obama’s unilateral move would only make it more difficult to get bipartisan legislation through Congress.
Congressional Republicans are now vowing to block Obama’s actions on immigration by cutting off Homeland Security Department spending for the program. House Speaker John Boehner said Hanen’s ruling underscores that Obama acted beyond his authority and said he hoped Senate Democrats will relent in their opposition to the Homeland Security Spending bill.
The first of Obama’s orders – to expand a program that protects young immigrants from deportation if they were brought to the U.S. illegally as children – was set to start taking effect Wednesday. The other major part of Obama’s order, which extends deportation protections to parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents who have been in the country for some years, was not expected to begin until May 19.
Hanen wrote in a memorandum accompanying his order that the lawsuit should go forward and that without a preliminary injunction the states will “suffer irreparable harm in this case.”
“The genie would be impossible to put back into the bottle,” he wrote, adding that he agreed with the plaintiffs’ argument that legalizing the presence of millions of people is a “virtually irreversible” action.
Hanen, who’s been on the federal court since 2002 after being nominated by President George W. Bush, regularly handles border cases but wasn’t known for being outspoken on immigration until a 2013 case. In that case, Hanen suggested that Homeland Security should be arresting parents living in the U.S. illegally who induce their children to cross the border.
Joaquin Guerra, political director of the Texas Organizing Project, called the ruling a “temporary setback.”
The coalition of states, led by Texas and made up of mostly conservative states in the South and Midwest, argues that Obama has violated the “Take Care Clause” of the U.S. Constitution, which they say limits the scope of presidential power. They also say the order will force increased investment in law enforcement, health care and education.
In their request for the injunction, the coalition said it was necessary because it would be “difficult or impossible to undo the President’s lawlessness after the Defendants start granting applications for deferred action.”
—
Comments