Obama’s Immigration Order Blocked by Judge

A federal appeals court said President Barack Obama’s controversial executive actions on immigration – aimed at easing deportation threats for millions of undocumented immigrants – must remain blocked.

On Monday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans upheld Hanen’s injunction in a 2-1 ruling.

DACA, since 2012, has protected from deportation more than half a million young people who were brought into the country illegally as children, and DAPA, which still has not been implemented, would benefit the parents of USA citizens or legal residents.

Republicans had criticized the plan as an illegal executive overreach when Obama announced it last November.

He also said Texas and the 25 other states that sued the administration over Obama’s executive actions on immigration “have standing” and “have established a substantial likelihood of success on the merits” of their claims.

Texas Attorney General Ken Patton has said that the Fifth Circuit has declared that the separation of powers remains the law of the land, and therefore, the president must abide by this just as anyone else would have to do.

“The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has dealt an important victory for law abiding immigrants and taught President Obama a much-needed civics lesson”, Black said. “The Supreme Court and Congress have made clear that the federal government can set priorities in enforcing our immigration laws”.

There is a credible argument that Obama’s executive orders on immigration are legal and should be upheld by the Supreme Court.

By making a swift decision to appeal, the administration increased the likelihood the Supreme Court will be able to take up the case during its current term, which ends next June. A third judge, Carolyn Dineen King, appointed by President Jimmy Carter, was not on the earlier panel, and she dissented Monday, ruling in favor of the Obama administration.

Regardless of whether the Supreme Court takes up the case before then, it is sure to become a major point of contention during the 2016 election campaign.

Justice Department spokesman Patrick Rodenbush said the department is deciding how to best move forward to “resolve the immigration litigation as quickly as possible”, according to the AP.

From left, immigration rights activists Manuel Ramirez, Lucian Villasenor and Adrian Orozco protest President Obama’s Civil Rights Summit speech at the University of Texas in 2014, challenging the president’s dedication to civil rights. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, for one, has gone much further, promising to deport the approximately 11 million immigrants living in the country unlawfully and to build a wall along the US-Mexico border.

“There is no justification for that delay”, she wrote in her opinion. The conservative lower courts have been practicing judicial activism by blocking the President’s executive orders on a few dubious grounds.