The U.S. Supreme Court announced this week that it will consider a legal challenge to President Obama’s overhaul of the United States’ immigration rules. The Court will examine the reach of presidential power as it decides the fate of one of the president’s most far-reaching executive actions.
President Obama, using his executive power, 14 months ago ordered the creation of a program called the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, called DAPA. The program would allow approximately 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 with work permits. President Obama said he took this step out of his frustration with lack of congressional action to update and revise immigration laws.
However, a coalition of 26 states filed a lawsuit accusing the president of ignoring federal procedures for changing rules and of abusing the power of the presidency by sidestepping Congress. Last February, Judge Andrew S. Hanen of the Federal District Court in Brownsville, Texas, entered a preliminary injunction shutting down the DAPA program while the legal case proceeded. The government then appealed that decision, but on November 9, a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, affirmed the injunction.
The Obama administration has requested that the Court move quickly. The Court agreed and it appears now that the case will be argued in April and decided sometime in June. If the Supreme Court upholds the president’s actions, the White House has vowed to move quickly to set up the DAPA program and begin enrolling immigrants before the next president takes over early next year.
Many of the briefs thus far have focused on the threshold question of whether the states have suffered the sort of direct and concrete injury that gives them standing to sue. This question will play a major role as the Supreme court considers the case. Judge Jerry E. Smith, writing for the majority in the appeals court, said the states had standing to challenge the program, saying the states would suffer a direct and concrete injury in having to spend millions of dollars to provide driver’s licenses to immigrants as a consequence of the federal program.
The appeals court also ruled that the DAPA program exceeded the president’s statutory authority. “The court’s decision could redefine the balance of power between Congress and the president,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr, a law professor at Cornell.
