Federal Judge Blocks Obama’s Amnesty

Daily News Article   —   Posted on February 18, 2015

NOTE: U.S. District Judge Hanen is in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, which is the Federal district court with jurisdiction over the southern part of Texas. Appeals from cases brought in the Southern District of Texas are taken to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

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(by Neil Munro, The Daily Caller) – On Monday, a federal judge in Texas blocked President Barack Obama’s unilateral and unpopular November plan to award work permits to four million illegal immigrants, starting this week. …

The lawsuit was filed by 26 states, and is expected to be decided by the Supreme Court in 2016.

[The coalition of states, led by Texas and made up of mostly conservative states in the South and Midwest, argues that Obama has violated the “Take Care Clause” of the U.S. Constitution, which they say limits the scope of presidential power. They also say the order will force increased investment in law enforcement, health care and education.

In their request for the injunction, the coalition said it was necessary because it would be “difficult or impossible to undo the President’s lawlessness after the Defendants start granting applications for deferred action.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called the decision a “victory for the rule of law in America” in a statement late Monday. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who as the state’s former attorney general led the state into the lawsuit, said Hanen’s decision “rightly stops the President’s overreach in its tracks.”]

“We live in a nation governed by a system of checks and balances, and the president’s attempt to bypass the will of the American people was successfully checked today,” he continued.

The 123-page judgement ruled that Obama’s November amnesty violated the Administrative Procedure Act by ignoring Congress’s laws.

The amnesty also improperly imposed burdens on the states, ruled Judge Andrew Hanen, of the Federal District Court in Brownsville. “The court finds that the government’s failure to secure the border has exacerbated illegal immigration into this country… [and] 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.”

Hanen was nominated in 2002 by then-President George W. Bush.

The injunction is needed, Hanen declared, to stall the amnesty while the lawsuit is debated by various appeals courts.

“The court agrees … any subsequent ruling that finds DAPA* unlawful after it is implemented would result in the states facing the substantially difficult – if not impossible – task of retracting benefits or licenses already provided” to beneficiaries, he wrote. [*DAPA – Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents is the executive action announced by President Obama in November that will begin May 20. It will allow parents of US Citizens or Lawful Permanent Residents to request deferred action and obtain work authorization, so long as they meet certain requirements, including: Have continuously resided in the U.S. since January 1, 2010; are the parent of a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident born on or before November 20, 2014; and are not an enforcement priority for removal from the U.S.]

Obama’s executive order is intended to award work permits, tax rebates, Social Security cards, and a quick route to citizenship to four million of the 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States. The process would have helped the four million – and their children and spouses – gain deeper roots in the United States.  The Department of Homeland Security was supposed to begin the amnesty process on Feb. 18.

The decision also blocked Obama’s announced expansion of his 2012 policy of awarding work permits to younger illegal immigrants. So far, Obama’s 2012 amnesty has allowed almost 700,000 illegals to compete against Americans for jobs in a lagging economy.

But the judge’s decision didn’t reverse Obama’s effort to largely end repatriation [deportation] of illegal immigrants. The decision “does not enjoin or impair the [Department of Homeland Security] secretary’s ability to marshal his assets or deploy the resources of the DHS,” wrote the judge. …

[Among those supporting Obama’s executive order is a group of 12 mostly liberal states, including Washington and California, as well as the District of Columbia. They filed a motion with Judge Hanen in support of Obama, arguing the directives will substantially benefit states and will further the public interest. Attorneys General from California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and the District of Columbia” joined Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson in a “friend of the court” brief.]

Reprinted here from The Daily Caller for educational purposes only.  May not be reproduced on other websites without permission from dailycaller.com.