Fourteen months ago, Mr. Obama ordered the creation of the program meant to allow as many as five million illegal immigrants who are the parents of citizens or of lawful permanent residents to apply for a program sparing them from deportation and providing them work permits. In November, a divided three-judge panel upheld an injunction issued by a U.S. District Court in Brownsville, Texas, shutting down the program while the legal case, United States v. Texas, proceeds.
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Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt said Tuesday, “I am hopeful the Supreme Court will recognize that the Constitution does not give the president the power or authority to rewrite our nation’s immigration laws”.
The court, which has twice rejected challenges to Mr. Obamas health care law, will now rule on the presidents plan to protect millions of illegal immigrants from deportation and allow them to work indefinitely in the country legally.
Due to the sheer number of immigrants involved and the fact that the executive orders went against the wishes of Congress, it is hard to predict how the Supreme Court might rule, said lawyer Muzaffar Chishti, director of the Migration Policy Institute office at New York University.
The immigrants who would benefit from the administration’s plan are mainly the parents of US citizens and lawful permanent residents.
Disputes over US immigration policies have been at the forefront of the current presidential contest.
The Obama Administration announced that program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, in 2012.
CT will be front and center before the U.S. Supreme Court this year via the presence of its senior senator in an election-year-charged immigration case.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision on the immigration case at end of June.
The justices said they will consider undoing lower court orders that blocked the plan from taking effect in the midst of a presidential campaign already roiled by the issue. “If this can’t be a priority for the court in making a good decision…this won’t have a good impact on my kids or me”, she said.
“The complaint against the president’s executive order was what stalled the implementation of administrative relief for up to 5 million people across the country”, she said. But Neumann-Ortiz said the legal jurisdictions that have been involved so far are untra-conservative and biased. And Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas accuses the Obama administration of “trying to amend our immigration laws by fiat” and wants Republicans to oppose amnesty.
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Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, who argues cases for the government before the Supreme Court, said that if the lower court orders are allowed to stand, it would force the immigrants “to continue to work off the books, without the option of lawful employment to provide for their families”.
