The Supreme Court has agreed to hear President Obama’s request to restore his deportation amnesty program, the justices announced in an order Tuesday that sets up the biggest showdown over executive powers in this administration.
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The program created by the president would grant legal status to illegal immigrants who are the parents of US citizens and lawful permanent residents.
Last February, Judge Andrew Hanen of U.S. District Court in Brownsville, Texas, entered a preliminary injunction shutting down the program while the legal case proceeded.
“I hope that the Supreme Court will recognize the separation of powers, rather than legislating from the bench as we have seen them do all too often in recent decisions”, U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, R-Gainesville, said in a press release.
At a November 20 immigration rights rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court to mark the first anniversary of Obama’s actions on deferred deportation, Marly Arevalo told Catholic News Service that she was there “fighting for my rights and the rights of others”.
The highest court in the country will decide whether President Barack Obama’s executive action targeted at immigration policy is legal.
The White House had sought the expedited review of lower court orders blocking the Obama plan, which kept the administration from issuing work permits to the immigrants and allowing them to receive some benefits from the federal government.
Businessman Donald Trump, the front-runner in polls leading up to the Republican presidential primaries, has inflamed the issue, stereotyping Mexican immigrants as “criminals” and “rapists”, while also proposing to deport all people living illegally in the United States.
Now, at least, the President has a chance to win the case in front of the Supreme Court by June and implement his plan in the remaining months of his Administration.
Obama’s action came after a bipartisan immigration policy overhaul bill passed by the Senate died in the House of Representatives. The marchers planned to walk for three days, from the federal immigration detention facility in Taylor to the Texas Governor’s Mansion in downtown Austin.
The Supreme Court stepped into a boiling political dispute over immigration Tuesday, setting up a likely decision in the middle of a presidential campaign marked by harsh rhetoric about immigrants.
This is the same court, after all, that found the individual mandate to be a constitutionally acceptable tax as an excuse to pass on overturning the Affordable Care Act.
The administration argued that a state can’t acquire standing to sue through a “voluntary decision to extend a subsidy” to undocumented immigrants spared from deportation. But those courts shied away from reaching the major constitutional questions of presidential power.
Verrilli said that lower-court rulings “will force millions of people-who are not removal priorities under criteria the court conceded are valid, and who are parents of us citizens and permanent residents-to continue to work off the books, without the option of lawful employment to provide for their families”.
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It may seem like nitpicking to some, but Stephen Legomsky, a former top immigration official, says that if any state can challenge an executive action on immigration, “the result would be that practically any favorable decision by the federal government on an immigration matter would give rise to lengthy lawsuits”. The expanded DACA would be open to certain people who have lived continuously in the US since January 1, 2010. “These families must be allowed to step out of the shadows and fully contribute to the country that they love and call home”.
