Supreme Court Takes on Immigration

WASHINGTON (CNS) – The U.S. Supreme Court Jan. 19 agreed to review President Barack Obama’s executive actions to protect from deportation both those who came to the U.S.as children and the immigrant parents of children who are U.S. citizens or legal residents of this country.

Setting priorities about whom to deport is a practical response to the fact that Congress has given the administration only enough money to deport no more than about 400,000 of the nation’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, the government says. The case is expected to be argued in April and decided by June, just before the presidential-nominating conventions of the Democratic and Republican parties. That was echoed by Mexico, which said: “Mexico urges that the positive impact that these programs have in the lives of migrant families, the economy and the social fabric of that country be taken into consideration”.

If overturned, programs like DAPA would give temporary residency to undocumented immigrants who are parents: as long as they’ve been here since 2010 or before, and their children are already legal citizens.

“We are confident that the policies will be upheld as lawful”, White House spokeswoman Brandi Hoffine said after the court’s announcement Tuesday.

Archbishop Gomez said the Supreme Court may be “our last best hope to restore humanity to our immigration policy”, given lawmakers’ inaction.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican said “The court should affirm what President Obama said himself on more than 20 occasions: that he can not unilaterally rewrite congressional laws and circumvent the people’s representatives”.

He said the program will discourage illegal hiring that depresses wages for American workers. If the Supreme Court rules against the White House, court battles will likely stall the programs implementation for the foreseeable future.

“We’re excited and pleased that the Supreme Court will examine the merits of these executive actions”, said Jeanne Atkinson, executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, known as CLINIC. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, like many in her party, proposes a more humane “pathway to citizenship” for undocumented immigrants.

A federal judge temporarily blocked the initiative in February 2015, and the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the injunction in November, saying the administration’s failure to first seek public comment was a breach of proper procedures, reported The Wall Street Journal.

The administration said Texas and the other states don’t even have the right to challenge the plan in federal court. That case later grew to include 26 states.

Ready California, a statewide collaborative working to ensure that the maximum number of eligible Californians benefit from DACA and DAPA, applauds today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Texas v. United States, the lawsuit that challenges the constitutionality of expanded DACA and DAPA.

He further justified the executive order by citing Harry S. Truman’s integration of the military and the Emancipation Proclamation, and adding, “it’s what presidents are able to do, especially when the Congress of the United States refuses to act”.