Wall Street Journal
By Brent Kendall and Richard Rubin
March 1, 2016
U.S.
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) on Tuesday said lawmakers will soon
vote on a measure authorizing the House to file a legal brief in a
Supreme Court case examining
the Obama administration’s executive actions on immigration.
Republicans
have been vocal critics of the White House’s plan to defer deportation
for millions of illegal immigrants. Lower courts have blocked his plan
from going forward,
and the Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments on the issue
in April, in a legal challenge brought by more than two dozen mostly
Republican-led states.
A
legal filing by the House would be in the form of a friend-of-the-court
brief supporting the challenge to the administration’s policies.
A
House vote is “a very extraordinary step,” Mr. Ryan said. “But this
executive amnesty is a direct attack on the Congress’ Article I powers
under our Constitution.”
Filing
a legal brief in the immigration case would be the latest in a series
of unusual legal moves by the House in litigation involving the Obama
administration.
The
House in November 2014 sued the administration over how it was
implementing parts of the Affordable Care Act, and a judge last
September said part of the lawsuit could
proceed.
The
House also intervened to defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act in
litigation after the Obama Justice Department in 2011 ceased defending
the constitutionality
of the law, which denied federal benefits to legally married same-sex
couples. The Supreme Court invalidated the law in the 2013 case U.S. v.
Windsor.
Former
House Speaker John Boehner had threatened to sue the president over his
immigration initiative but, House Republicans haven’t done so, and
other cases on the issue
moved forward in the courts.
It
is fairly common for members of Congress to file friend-of-the-court
briefs in important Supreme Court cases, but the standard practice is
for lawmakers to sign those
briefs in their individual capacities.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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