{"id":163240,"date":"2016-06-23T09:00:38","date_gmt":"2016-06-23T15:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=163240"},"modified":"2016-06-23T11:15:42","modified_gmt":"2016-06-23T17:15:42","slug":"supreme-court-tie-deals-blow-to-obamas-immigration-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2016\/06\/supreme-court-tie-deals-blow-to-obamas-immigration-order\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court&#8217;s tie deals blow to Obama immigration order"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_163242\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-163242\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/SC-DACA-sized_jpg_800x1000_q100-771x515.jpg\" alt=\"Tomas Martinez\" width=\"771\" height=\"515\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/SC-DACA-sized_jpg_800x1000_q100-771x515.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/SC-DACA-sized_jpg_800x1000_q100-336x224.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/SC-DACA-sized_jpg_800x1000_q100-768x513.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/SC-DACA-sized_jpg_800x1000_q100.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Lexey Swall \/ The Texas Tribune<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tomas Martinez with GLAHR, a grass roots organization from Atlanta, chants to excite the crowd in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on April 18. Hundreds gathered in front of the Supreme Court to show their support for President Obama\u2019s immigration executive action as the Court heard oral arguments on the deferred action initiatives.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Dealing a major blow to President Obama\u2019s controversial executive immigration order, the U.S. Supreme Court announced Thursday it had failed to produce a majority opinion on the policy \u2014 meaning that the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals\u2019 November 2015 decision rejecting the policy stands.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article originally appeared in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2016\/06\/23\/supreme-court-rules-obamas-immigration-order\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Texas Tribune<\/a>,\u00a0a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans and engages with them about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2015\/02\/16\/executive-action-immigration-ruling\/\" target=\"_blank\">program had been blocked<\/a>\u00a0in February 2015 by a Brownsville-based federal judge, Andrew Hanen, days before it was scheduled to begin.<\/p>\n<p>In a one-sentence opinion, the Supreme Court declared, &#8220;The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy going around Congress to grant legal status to millions of people here illegally, the president abused the power of his office and ignored the will of the American people,&#8221; U.S. Sen. John Cornyn said in a statement. &#8220;The president can\u2019t circumvent the legislative process simply because he doesn\u2019t get what he wants, and I\u2019m glad the\u00a0rule of law was affirmed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The case now returns to Hanen&#8217;s district court, where litigation on the merits of the plan could continue.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The government can request rehearing [from the Supreme Court], but otherwise the case will now go back to the district court for further proceedings,&#8221; Kayleigh Lovvorn, spokeswoman for the Texas attorney general&#8217;s office, said in a statement. &#8220;We will now seek a permanent injunction.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>U.S.\u00a0Rep.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/directory\/joaquin-castro\/\" target=\"_blank\">Joaquin Castro<\/a>, D-San Antonio, called the ruling &#8220;a setback,&#8221; but said it\u2019s &#8220;not the end of the road for these much-needed programs or for the millions of people eligible for them.&#8221;<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am confident that this case will come before the Supreme Court again,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA, was\u00a0announced in November 2014 and could have granted deportation relief to more than 4 million people living in the country illegally \u2014 including more than 1\u00a0million undocumented immigrants in Texas. The program would also have allowed the immigrants to apply for renewable work permits if they\u00a0have lived in the country for more than five years,\u00a0pass background checks and pay fines.<\/p>\n<p>As of 2015, about\u00a0533,000 undocumented immigrants in Texas \u2014 roughly 40 percent of the state\u2019s undocumented-immigrant population \u2014 had children legally in the country,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.migrationpolicy.org\/data\/unauthorized-immigrant-population\/state\/TX\" target=\"_blank\">according<\/a>\u00a0to the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute. About 1.17 million undocumented immigrants living\u00a0in Texas have been\u00a0in the country for at least five years, including about 222,000 who have lived here for more than 20 years.<\/p>\n<p>Texas and 16 other states initially sued the Obama administration in early December 2014 after the executive action was announced; eight others eventually signed on. Hanen\u2019s decision was upheld twice by the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday\u2019s decision keeps in place what we have maintained from the very start: one person, even a president, cannot unilaterally change the law,&#8221; Texas Attorney General <a href=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/directory\/ken-paxton\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ken Paxton<\/a>\u00a0said in a statement. &#8220;This is a major setback to President Obama\u2019s attempts to expand executive power, and a victory for those who believe in the separation of powers and the rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In arguments before the Supreme Court in April, attorneys for the state of Texas accused the president of circumventing Congress with the unilateral action on immigration. They added in court documents\u00a0that the state would be \u201cirreparably harmed\u201d by having to pay to process driver\u2019s licenses for the applicants and give them benefits.<\/p>\n<p>But the Obama administration countered by\u00a0saying Texas does not have standing to sue the government<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>and that the president isn\u2019t granting people in the country illegally a free pass. Instead, he\u2019s telling immigration agents to use their limited resources to deport criminals and felons, while simultaneously allowing immigrants deemed low-priority to work and stay with their families.<\/p>\n<p><em>This breaking news article has been updated.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. Supreme Court announced Thursday it had failed to produce a majority opinion on the policy \u2014 meaning that the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals\u2019 November 2015 decision rejecting the policy stands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":163242,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[140,2260,3272,116],"class_list":["post-163240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-border-and-immigration","tag-texas","tag-u-s-supreme-court","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}