The Supreme Court on Monday seemed sharply divided during an extended argument over a challenge to President Barack Obama’s plan that would shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation and allow them to work in the country legally.
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The states, joined by congressional Republicans, argue that Obama doesn’t have the power to effectively change immigration law.
In 2014, President Obama bypassed Congress, using executive power to create a program that would register four million undocumented immigrants and prevent them from being deported.
But shortly after the president announced this policy, lawyers for Texas and 25 other Republican-led states filed suit in a federal court in Brownsville, Texas, on the Mexican border.
The president already decreed in 2012 that children who entered the USA before 2007 could get work permits and they would be temporarily spared from deportation.
There are more than 11 million immigrants in the USA who are here illegally, with 3.6 million of them possibly eligible for DAPA benefits, according to a 2016 report from the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based nonpartisan research center.
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A 4-4 split by justices would leave in place a lower court’s decision blocking Obama’s action in a severe blow to the president.
The administration and immigration advocates say the immigration orders are neither unprecedented nor even unusual. About 85% of Michigan families with undocumented parents have children who are USA citizens, says Susan Reed, managing attorney with the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center.
Welcome to what Solicitor General Donald Verrilli told the Supreme Court on Monday is the “immigration world”. To qualify for deferred action, individuals must have continuously resided in the United States since January 1, 2010, register with the government and pass a criminal background check.
This case was added only after the Obama Administration requested the highest court hear it before November’s elections.
The 34-year-old came to the USA illegally from Mexico when he was a teenager. “There is no question about whether the executive branch has discretion to prioritize who to target for deportation, but the question is whether a formal statement granting an individual deferred action and stating that they are lawfully present has the effect of granting them extra rights”, said Wolfe.
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For hundreds of people flooding the streets outside the Supreme Court, eight justices are going to pave a roadmap for their future-one way or another.
