A
federal judge in Texas has ordered a halt, at least temporarily, to
President Obama’s executive actions on immigration, siding with Texas
and 25 other states that filed a lawsuit opposing the initiatives.
In
an order filed on Monday, the judge, Andrew S. Hanen of Federal
District Court in Brownsville, prohibited the Obama administration from
carrying out programs the president announced in November that would
offer protection from deportation and work permits to as many as five
million undocumented immigrants. The first of those programs was
scheduled to start receiving applications on Wednesday.
Judge
Hanen, an outspoken critic of the administration on immigration policy,
found that the states had satisfied the minimum legal requirements to
bring their lawsuit. He said the Obama administration had failed to
comply with basic administrative procedures for putting such a sweeping
program into effect.
The
administration argued that Mr. Obama was well within long-established
federal authority for a president to decide how to enforce the
immigration laws. But Texas and the other states said the executive
measures were an egregious case of government by fiat that would impose
huge new costs on their budgets.
In
ordering the administration to suspend the programs while he makes a
final decision on the case, Judge Hanen agreed with the states that the
president’s policies had already been costly for them.
“The
court finds that the government’s failure to secure the border has
exacerbated illegal immigration into this country,” Judge Hanen wrote.
“Further, the record supports the finding that this lack of enforcement,
combined with the country’s high rate of illegal immigration,
significantly drains the states’ resources.”
Ken
Paxton, the attorney general of Texas, which is leading the states
bringing the lawsuit, hailed the judge’s ruling as a “victory for the
rule of law in America and a crucial first step in reining in President
Obama’s lawlessness.” He said Mr. Obama’s actions were “an affront to
everyone pursuing a life of freedom and opportunity in America the right
way.”
Mr.
Obama said he was using executive powers to focus enforcement agents on
deporting serious criminals and those posing threats to national
security. Three-year deportation deferrals and work permits were offered
for undocumented immigrants who have not committed serious crimes, have
been here at least five years and have children who are American
citizens or legal residents.
As
part of the package, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson also
established new priorities, instructing enforcement agents to
concentrate on deporting the most dangerous criminals, including
terrorists and gang members, as well as migrants caught crossing the
border illegally.
In
his opinion, Judge Hanen accused administration officials of being
“disingenuous” when they said the president’s initiatives did not
significantly alter existing policies. He wrote that the programs were
“a massive change in immigration practice” that would affect “the
nation’s entire immigration scheme and the states who must bear the
lion’s share of its consequences.” He said the executive actions had
violated laws that the federal government must follow to issue new
rules, and he determined “the states have clearly proven a likelihood of
success on the merits.”
Since
the lawsuit was filed on Dec. 3, the stark divisions over Mr. Obama’s
sweeping actions have played out in filings in the case. Three senators
and 65 House members, all Republicans, signed a legal brief opposing the president that was filed by the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative legal action organization.
Joe
Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County in Arizona, who is known for
crackdowns on people living in the country illegally, also filed a brief
supporting the states’ lawsuit. In December, a federal judge in
Washington dismissed a separate lawsuit by Sheriff Arpaio seeking to stop the president’s actions.
On
the other side, Washington and 11 other states as well as the District
of Columbia weighed in supporting Mr. Obama, arguing that they would
benefit from the increased wages and taxes that would result if illegal
immigrant workers came out of the underground. The mayors of 33 cities,
including New York and Los Angeles, and the Conference of Mayors also
supported Mr. Obama.
“The
strong entrepreneurial spirit of immigrants to the United States has
significantly boosted local economies and local labor markets,” the
mayors wrote in their filing.
Some
legal scholars said any order by Judge Hanen to halt the president’s
actions would be quickly suspended by the United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans.
“Federal
supremacy with respect to immigration matters makes the states a kind
of interloper in disputes between the president and Congress,” said
Laurence H. Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard. “They
don’t have any right of their own.”
The
states’ lawsuit quotes Mr. Obama as saying many times in recent years
that he did not have authority to take actions as broad as those he
ultimately took. Mr. Tribe said that argument was not likely to pass
muster with appeals court judges.
“All
of that is interesting political rhetoric,” he said, “but it has
nothing to do with whether the states have standing and nothing to do
with the law.”
Judge
Hanen, who was appointed in 2002 by President George W. Bush, has
excoriated the Obama administration’s immigration policies in several
unusually outspoken rulings. The president's supporters have said that
Texas officials, who are leading the states’ lawsuit, were venue
shopping when they chose to file in Brownsville.
But
at a hearing on Jan. 15, Judge Hanen said Brownsville, which sits on
the border with Mexico, was an appropriate venue for the suit because
its residents see the impact of immigration every day.
“Talking to
anyone in Brownsville about immigration is like talking to Noah about
the flood,” Judge Hanen said.
In
a lengthy and colorful opinion last August, Judge Hanen departed from
the issue at hand to accuse the Obama administration of adopting a
deportation policy that “endangers America” and was “an open invitation
to the most dangerous criminals in society.”
The
case involved a Salvadoran immigrant with a long criminal record whom
Judge Hanen had earlier sent to prison for five years. Instead of
deporting the man after he served his sentence, an immigration judge in
Los Angeles ordered him released, a decision Judge Hanen found
“incredible.”
Citing no specific evidence, he surmised that the
administration had adopted a broader policy of releasing such criminals.
While
acknowledging that he had no jurisdiction to alter policy, Judge Hanen
said he relied on his “firsthand, in-the-trenches knowledge of the
border situation” and “at least a measurable level of
common sense” to
reach his conclusions about the case.
“The
court has never been opposed to accommodating those who come to this
country yearning to be free, but this current policy only restricts the
freedom of those who deserve it most while giving complete freedom to
criminals who deserve it least,” he wrote.
The
mayor of Brownsville, Tony Martinez, was among those who filed court
papers supporting Mr. Obama’s actions. “We see a tremendous value in
families staying together and being together,” Mr. Martinez said on a
conference call on Tuesday organized by the White House. “Eventually we
hope to get all these folks out of the shadows,” he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment