ACLU, others appeal Texas judge’s order to turn over immigrants’ names


1:42 p.m. Friday, June 3, 2016
This post has been updated.

On behalf of four unauthorized immigrants, including two Texans, legal groups on Friday announced they will ask an appeals court to halt a recent order by a federal judge in South Texas that instructed the federal government to turn over the names and personal information of about 50,000 people who benefited from President Barack Obama’s 2014 executive action on immigration.

The filing will be made by the National Immigration Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants’ Rights Project and the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas on behalf of four people who received three-year work authorizations under the new policy. The two Texans are filing anonymously to protect their identities. The others are from Florida and Oklahoma.

The Obama administration opened the South Texas Family Residential Center in December in response to the surge of Central American women and children who were fleeing poverty and gang violence in their native countries. Photo By: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The dispute over the order by District Court Judge Andrew Hanen of Brownsville is an off-shoot of the Texas-led challenge to Obama’s executive action that is before the U.S. Supreme Court.

That case, United States v. Texas, began when Texas and 25 states other states challenged the immigration policy issued in November 2014 that aimed to shift deportation enforcement away from unauthorized immigrants who have no criminal record, are under 18 years old, are the parents of U.S.-born minors or have family in the U.S. An estimated 5 million people would benefit from the policy, including about 743,000 Texans.
Hanen in February 2015 blocked enforcement of the orders, and the U.S. Justice Department appealed the case to the Supreme Court. Still with only eight members following the death of Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the caseon April 18 and is expected to make a ruling this summer.

Back in Brownsville, Hanen last month issued an usual order in which he instructed Justice Department lawyers who worked on the case to attend ethics courses for five years for allegedly misleading him when the case was in his court in December 2014 and January 2015.

Hanen said the administration told the court that no immigrants had yet received deportation relief under the program, when 100,000 people had already benefited. He also ordered the government to release the names of the immigrants who have already benefited from the program. The Justice Department has estimated that about 50,000 of those recipients live in states that challenged the executive actions, subjecting them to Hanen’s order.

Hanen asked the Justice Department to turn over the names by June 10. The legal groups said their emergency request to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which they plan to file Friday afternoon, would ask for the appeals court to make a ruling on whether it will block or temporarily delay Hanen’s order by June 8.

The advocates say the immigrants are unfairly harmed by Hanen’s order because they were not parties to the case, had nothing to do with any alleged misconduct by the Justice Department and could be harmed or harassed by anti-immigrant states or individuals if their information becomes public.

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/s...n-immig/nrZN5/