The ruling marks a legal victory for the federal government, but it is a very scant one because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia didn’t rule on the actual substance of the president’s tentative amnesty program.
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In a somewhat related matter, the Justice Department has been given the go-ahead to intercede in a discrimination lawsuit against the sheriff.
“Sheriff Arpaio has failed to allege an injury that is both fairly traceable to the deferred action policies and redressable by enjoining them”, Judge Cornelia “Nina” Pillard wrote.
That more substantive challenge brought by 26 states, led by Republican bastion Texas, will be heard by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in July and could ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, Arpaio is petitioning an appeals court to have federal Judge G. Murray Snow removed from the case after Snow’s wife admitted to friends that her husband “hates” Arpaio and wants him gone from office, according to The Washington Times. As part of the roll out, the administration established a process-called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) – to enable approximately 4.3 million otherwise removable undocumented immigrants to be eligible for work authorization and associated benefits.
“His allegations that the policies will cause more crime in Maricopa County are unduly speculative”.
“Projected increases he anticipates in the county’s policing burden and jail population rest on chains of supposition and contradict acknowledged realities”, Pillard wrote. The three-judge panel found the sheriff didn’t have standing to sue. The intervention comes after a partial settlement with Arpaio’s department and the county last month, which laid down court-ordered reforms on policing tactics.
Larry Klayman, a lawyer for Arpaio, criticized the ruling and said he plans to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
The Obama administration provisions would give temporary legal status and work permits to eligible immigrants.
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A federal court held in May 2013 that Arpaio’s department used racial profiling and illegal detentions to target Latinos, violating the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with its traffic enforcement practices.
