Bloomberg
By Justin Sink and Angela Greiling Keane
May 26, 2015
Immigration
activists vowed Republicans will pay a political price after a federal
appeals court kept President Barack Obama’s action to defer deportation
on hold.
The
2-1 decision by a panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on
Tuesday was a victory for opponents of Obama’s plan to extend
deportation protection and offer
work permits to up to five million undocumented immigrants. It also
probably will push the court case stemming from a suit by 26 states into
the middle of the 2016 presidential campaign.
Backers
of Obama’s action said the case will exacerbate frustration among
Hispanic voters, an increasingly powerful bloc, and solidify their anger
at Republican lawmakers
who’ve thwarted changes to U.S. immigration law.
“The GOP is trying to make this into some sort of legal issue about the president’s executive authority.”
Frank Sharry
“The
GOP is trying to make this into some sort of legal issue about the
president’s executive authority,” Frank Sharry, executive director of
America’s Voice, a pro-immigration
group, said in a telephone interview. For Hispanics, “It’s not going to
be a debate about some abstract constitutional principle.”
The
appeals court in New Orleans refused to lift a federal judge’s
injunction banning Obama’s changes from taking effect before the
litigation brought by the states is
resolved. The U.S. Justice Department is reviewing the ruling and
considering its next steps, which might include asking the full panel of
the New Orleans appeals court to reconsider its request, according to
the administration.
Court’s Impact
The
court’s ruling only affects the administration’s attempted expansion of
an existing deferred deportation program to the parents of children who are either U.S. citizens or legal residents, and to a larger group of immigrants who entered the country legally as children. It won’t change Obama’s directives to
target for deportation those who are a threat to “national security,
public safety, and border security.”
While
Republican Party officials have placed a premium on boosting outreach
to Hispanic voters, who could prove pivotal in the swing states of
Florida, Colorado, Virginia,
and Ohio, most of the party’s presidential candidates have been
critical of Obama’s use of executive power to ease immigration rules.
Hillary
Clinton, the leading contender for the Democratic presidential
nomination, has already staked out clear support for Obama’s executive
actions on immigration and
promised to go further in pushing for citizenship for undocumented
immigrants.
Immigrant Voters
“The
reality is for both Democrats and Republicans that they’re going to
have to contend with a Latino and immigrant vote,” said Kica Matos,
spokeswoman for the Fair Immigration
Reform Movement. “There is going to be a point of reckoning for those
candidates with an anti-immigrant agenda.”
The
ruling is certain to energize Republican voters who oppose any move to
give undocumented immigrants legal status and view Obama’s executive
actions as overreaching.
That message was amplified by some Republican lawmakers on Tuesday.
“This
decision is an important victory for the rule of law and for every
legal immigrant who is disrespected by the president’s unconstitutional
amnesty,” Representative
Diane Black, a Tennessee Republican, said in a statement.
House
Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said in a statement, said
that his members “are leading the fight to rein in President Obama’s
executive overreach and
uphold our Constitution, and we will continue to follow this case
closely.”
Primary Challenge
Fergus
Cullen, a former New Hampshire state Republican chairman, said the
legal battle over Obama’s immigration action risks encouraging
polarizing remarks from the party’s
presidential candidates during the primaries next year in an attempt to
appeal for support from the most conservative voters. That could damage
efforts to win over Hispanic voters in the November election, he said.
“I
suspect there are a number of Democratic operatives that are quietly
delighted at the ruling today,” said Cullen, a founder of Americans by
Choice, a pro-immigration
advocacy group. “They’re hoping that somebody like Ted Cruz will say
something intemperate in response to the ruling because then they can
portray every Republican as anti-immigrant and anti-reform.”
Personal Issue
Cesar
Vargas, the co-director of the Dream Action Coalition, said the impact
of the ruling is felt deeply in the Hispanic community. It’s hard to
ignore that the president’s
action would have provided relief for his 70-year-old mother, he said,
something shared with millions of families.
“With
Republicans doing this, it definitely demonstrates who is on our side
and who isn’t, and who we should support and who we shouldn’t,” he said.
Clarissa
Martinez De Castro, a deputy vice president at the National Council of
La Raza, said an estimated six in 10 voters know an undocumented
immigrant.
“The
interesting thing is that by delaying this, the Republicans are
actually potentially putting themselves into a sharper corner on the
issue of immigration,” she said.
Clinton
won praise from immigration advocates earlier this month when she held a
roundtable in Nevada with young adults whose parents face deportation
and fully embraced citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants.
“It
seems pretty clear that the Clinton campaign is going to try to
increase both turnout and margin of Latino voters for the Democrat on
the ballot,” Sharry said.
Immigration
has already been a point of contention within the Republican
presidential race. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush told Fox News
earlier this month that he would
wait until Congress revamps immigration law before overturning the
president’s actions.
“If
you’ve been here for an extended period of time, you have no nexus to
the country of your parents,” Bush said. “What are we supposed to do?
Marginalize these people
forever?”
Senator
Marco Rubio of Florida has said that he wants to slowly phase out the
president’s program, first implemented in 2012, offering benefits to a
smaller group of undocumented
immigrants who entered the country illegally as children. Cruz, a
senator from Texas, has said his first act as president would be
nullifying the president’s executive actions on immigration and other
issues.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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