New York Times (Editorial)
February 17, 2015
President
Obama surely knew that his recent executive actions to protect millions
of undocumented immigrants from deportation would run into trouble as
soon as a 26-state
lawsuit opposing the actions landed on the desk of Federal District
Judge Andrew Hanen, of Brownsville, Tex.
Judge
Hanen — who last month invoked a biblical flood in describing illegal
immigration into that community — has spoken out aggressively against
Mr. Obama’s immigration
policy in the past, saying it “endangers America” and is “an open
invitation to the most dangerous criminals in society.” Indeed, his
earlier opinions were the reason Republican governors and attorneys
general pushed to get their suit into his district.
As
expected, the judge on Monday night temporarily blocked the first of
several programs Mr. Obama announced in November to offer work permits
and a three-year reprieve
from deportation to more than four million immigrants who are parents
of American citizens and who have no criminal record.
That
move — which Mr. Obama took only after years of failed efforts by
Congress to pass any immigration reform — triggered the fury of
congressional Republicans, who responded
with threats of, among other things, impeachment proceedings.
Gov.
Greg Abbott of Texas was so excited at Monday’s decision that he jumped
on Twitter to say Mr. Obama’s amnesty order “has been ruled
unconstitutional.”
No, it hasn’t.
What
Judge Hanen did was to issue a preliminary injunction that prevents the
executive action from going into effect until he can rule on the merits
of the lawsuit itself,
or until a higher court reverses him.
What
he did not do was dispute the president’s broad authority to decide
whom to deport, which is exactly what the Obama administration did in
prioritizing the removal
of immigrants who pose a threat to public safety or national security.
Yet the judge blocked the action, which he called “a massive change in
immigration practice.” On Tuesday, administration officials announced
that they would delay the program, which was
scheduled to begin this week, while they appealed the ruling.
To
get to where he clearly wanted to go, Judge Hanen first had to find
that the 26 plaintiff states have standing — that is, the legal capacity
— to sue the administration
over the new policy. He ruled that at least Texas did because the
actions would force the state to spend scarce resources providing things
like driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants.
Judge
Hanen said the costs were the result of the federal government’s
“failure to secure the borders,” and he noted the millions of dollars
that states spend to educate
“each illegal alien child,” even though, as he knows, the Constitution
already requires states to provide that education.
He
danced around the fundamental point — as the Supreme Court reiterated
as recently as 2012 — that setting immigration policy is the prerogative
of the federal government,
not the states. The judge also ruled that the states are likely to
succeed on at least one of their underlying claims, which is that the
White House did not follow proper administrative procedure, which
requires certain executive actions to be preceded by
a public notice and comment period.
However
the appellate courts come down on the case, Mr. Obama is finding
himself once again dealing with a familiar sort of Republican
intransigence. With his humane and
realistic immigration policy, he is trying to tackle a huge and
long-running national problem: what to do with more than 11 million
undocumented people who are living, working and raising families here,
when the government cannot possibly apprehend or deport
all of them. To the contrary, bringing some of these people out of the
shadows of illegality would be an economic boon, as noted by the 12
states and more than 30 cities around the country (including
Brownsville, Tex.) that are defending Mr. Obama’s actions.
On
immigration, the Republicans seem to want only to savage the
president’s efforts to address a pressing nationwide crisis, just as
they have on health care reform. They
are good at unleashing rage against Mr. Obama’s supposed lawlessness,
but they have no meaningful solutions of their own.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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