Appeals panel hears arguments on Obama immigration action | New Orleans

The Obama administration today is going to try to persuade the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to allow for the president’s 2014 executive actions on immigration to move forward.

The arguments at the New Orleans-based appeals court attracted hundreds of immigrant-rights protesters who have long advocated for the executive actions that could affect the millions here illegally, activists at the scene said.

While it is unclear how the court will rule, Judge Carolyn Dineen King appeared sympathetic to the administration’s arguments, particularly on the underlying legality of DAPA, repeatedly pressing Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller over the issue of work permits, which is at the center of the conservative complaints about the order.

“A trial of this magnitude could drag out well beyond the president’s tenure”, said Dale Wilcox, executive director of the Immigration Reform Law Institute, which opposes the immigration program.

“To be clear”, he added, “this court expects the government to be in full compliance with this court’s injunction”.

Over 50 immigrant leaders with the Illinois Coalition for Immigration and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) and allied groups are among those demonstrating in New Orleans.

This report was provided by the Associated Press. Texas and 25 other states challenged the action in federal court.

“Texas believes it can haul the federal government into court and prevent it from making changes to federal immigration policy”, he said.

“I’ve been in the United States for 22 years waiting for immigration reform”, he said.

Obama’s executive orders were meant to expand a program that protects young immigrants from deportation if they were brought to the USA illegally as children.

But supporters of the program, which would have shielded the bulk of Texas’ 1.6 million undocumented immigrants from deportation, aren’t optimistic.

“Barack Obama said himself more than 20 times that he would be ignoring the law if he acted unilaterally to grant dispensation from immigration law”, Abbott said.

The 5th Circuit denied a previous Obama administration request to let the programs take effect.

In May, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit court refused to lift the injunction and allow the government to start implementing the plans while the legal process continued.

In December, Gov. Greg Abbott – then the state’s attorney general – sued the Obama administration, arguing that the president had overstepped his authority by circumventing Congress and taking immigration reform matters into his own hands.

Elrod and Smith, both Republican appointees, disputed the administration’s argument that the states have no standing. Our cities have created new partnerships to ensure that immigrants have access to reliable information and can connect with partner-area organizations that provide services to them. “Just seems to me that … it really is a lot more than prosecutorial discretion”.