Texas Denied 30-Day Extension in Immigration Case

The White House is hopeful the Supreme Court will allow millions of undocumented immigrants to apply for programs that could make them eligible for work authorization and some associated benefits.

Texas District Court Judge Andrew S. Hanen froze Obama’s programs, which would have gone into effect in February of 2015, ruling that there would be now way to “put the toothpaste back in the tube” if the federal government lost the case. As a result, the policies have remained in limbo for months.

Immigrant rights groups – fearful that the case might be pushed off until next term and decided after the presidential election, expressed relief by the Court’s decision.

Verrilli responded that the court should grant no more than eight additional days for Texas’ response, and the court concurred on Tuesday.

A 30-day extension would have virtually guaranteed a bump of the case until after the court’s summer recess, increasing the odds that the contentious immigration case would not be decided until after President Obama left office.

The Obama administration argued Texas and the other states had no legal basis to challenge Obama’s action. But they’ve cleared a major hurdle that could have halted the new policies for at least one additional year.

The court didn’t issue a direct order and attorneys for both sides were instead notified of the extension by the Supreme Court clerk, according to a report by Lyle Denniston, a contributor to SCOTUSblog.

“The president does not have the unilateral authority to determine who is lawfully present in our nation, and we look forward to presenting our arguments in this case – which have been accepted by federal courts three times”, spokeswoman Cynthia Meyer said in an email. In May, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit refused to let the program continue while it considered the appeal. Granting this short extension does not give us any indication, of course, as to how the Court might actually rule on the merits of this case, and it doesn’t even necessarily tell us whether or not it would take the case at all.