Reuters
By Lindsay Dunsmuir
May 4, 2015
A
federal appeals court on Monday appeared to cast doubt on an Arizona
sheriff's lawsuit that contends President Barack Obama's executive
actions on immigration are unconstitutional.
Maricopa
County Sheriff Joe Arpaio sued President Obama in November, the same
day Obama announced unilateral steps to ease the threat of deportation
for about 4.7 million
undocumented immigrants.
Two
of the three judges weighing the case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the District of Columbia Circuit signaled some agreement with a D.C.
federal judge who ruled
in late December that Arpaio lacked standing to sue, a provision in
U.S. law that means he has to prove he has been directly harmed.
Arpaio
contends that his office has been harmed because, among other reasons,
there are criminals who would not be deported in the country as a
result.
"I
wasn't entirely clear ... there is no suspension of deportation with
respect to those people," Judge Nina Pillard, an Obama appointee, said
to Arpaio's lawyer Larry
Klayman.
They are more likely to be deported, she added.
Judge
Sri Srinivasan, also appointed by Obama, took a similar line, saying
the executive actions "don't purport to relax anything to do with
criminals."
Disputing that notion, Klayman said, "Only the most severe criminals are deported.
Judge
Janice Brown, appointed by President George W. Bush, said it was
"difficult to pin down" Arpaio's legal argument for grounds to sue but
also questioned the government's
motion to dismiss.
"I
think the question for me here is one argument might be if you didn't
make it so attractive ... maybe less people would come, maybe more
people would self deport,"
Brown said.
Arpaio,
long known for his get-tough approach on U.S. immigration, admitted
civil contempt charges in a Phoenix federal court two weeks ago after
failing to comply with
several court orders banning his police force from racially profiling
immigrants.
In
a more substantive challenge, a Texas federal court judge, at the
urging of 26 states, in February issued an injunction blocking the Obama
administration's actions,
which remains in place.
The
U.S. government's appeal is currently with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals and the litigation could ultimately be decided by the U.S.
Supreme Court.
The case is Joseph Arpaio v. Barack Obama, et al., U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, No. 14-5325.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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