Thread: Immigration Agents Ask Judge to Block Obama Initiative

By Thomas Korosec & Andrew Harris - Apr 7, 2013 9:01 PM PT
Bloomberg.com

Ten U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are asking a federal judge to block an initiative by the Obama administration that defers deportation action against law-abiding undocumented immigrants.

Announced by President Barack Obama last year, the program allows the children of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. before age 16 to remain in the country if they have no criminal record and meet other criteria.

The agents sued ICE and the federal Department of Homeland Security over the policy in August. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Dallas is set to hear arguments today on a request to block the measure.

The government’s actions “place the ICE agent plaintiffs on the horns of a dilemma,” their lawyers said in a November court filing. “They must either comply with federal law and face disciplinary actions, or ignore the requirements of federal law and participate in the administration of an illegal program.”

The hearing comes as bipartisan groups in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives negotiate legislation that would resolve the status of more than 11 million undocumented immigrants while addressing issues of border security.

Florida Republican Marco Rubio and New York Democrat Charles Schumer are among those in the Senate negotiations, while Illinois Democrat Luis Gutierrez and Idaho Republican Raul Labrador are part of the House talks.
‘Not Amnesty’

The Obama administration’s “Deferred Action” initiative, announced in June, was created with the intent of shifting immigration agency focus toward border security and removal of dangerous people.

“This is not amnesty, this is not immunity,” Obama said then. “This is not a path to citizenship, it’s not a permanent fix.” Deferral, if conferred, is valid for two years, during which the individual may obtain authorization for employment, and can be renewed, according to the ICE website.

The U.S. has opposed the agents’ bid for a court order blocking the program, arguing they’ve shown no likelihood of imminent and irreparable injury, and cannot prevail on the merits.

“The challenged action here (an agency’s issuance of memoranda providing guidance on how it will prioritize its enforcement efforts) is inherently a matter committed to agency discretion by law for which this court lacks jurisdiction,” lawyers for the U.S. said in a December court filing.

O’Connor in January denied a federal government request he throw out the case, ruling that the agents had standing to pursue most of their claims.

The case is Crane v. Napolitano, 3:12-cv-03247, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas (Dallas).

http://oneoldvet.com/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-0...nitiative.html

These orders from Obama are illegal and if they are allowed to stand because of any activist or politicized judges, then the stream of unlawful orders from the White House will increase and become more severe and destructive.

W

How can there be law abiding illegal immigrants?? If a father a mother and a child break into your home, how many do you remove?? When did ignorance become an excuse for crime?? Isn't the president sworn to uphold and defend the constitution?? Is he going against his sworn oath?? If I was to break into the presidents personal house.. Now I expect amnesty and should be able to stay there forever..My grandparents came thru Ellis island , we have been paying property taxes in this county for over one hundred years.

ICE deportation agents testify in federal hearing on initiative to suspend deportations

8:23 pm on April 8, 2013
By DIANNE SOLIS
The Dallas Morning News

A federal judge is expected to rule within a few weeks or even days on whether Congress has the primary right to amend deportation processes that create benefits for young immigrants, after a hearing Monday in a Dallas district court.

Ten U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents, including one in Dallas, seek a preliminary injunction against deportation suspensions for up to 1.7 million persons potentially covered by an initiative known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.

The unusual case pits deportation officers against their bosses. They’re led by their national union president Christopher Crane, who is based in Salt Lake City. Today’s hearing comes just as the Senate is expected to announce a bipartisan plan to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor honed in on Congress’s authority over immigration matters, citing the U.S. Constitution and its supremacy clause and last year’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court involving the state of Arizona. That ruling largely struck down portions of the Arizona law that were under review.

“Do you agree with me, when it comes to immigration, Congress’s power is at its zenith?” O’Connor asked the U.S. government attorney.
“I would not agree it is at its height,” responded Justice Department attorney Adam D. Kirschner.

Kirschner argued deportation agents were trying “to disrupt 40 years of prosecutorial discretion.” He cited previous memos that established when prosecutorial leniency was to be applied in favor of going after more serious offenders.

The deportation agents are also taking a punch at a memo written in June 2011 by their boss, ICE director John Morton, that outlined prosecutorial discretion in civil immigration enforcement cases. The memo lists public safety concerns and criminal history as factors to consider. Many more persons could be impacted, depending on the pending ruling by O’Connor, an appointee of then-President George W. Bush and a lawyer with Capitol Hill experience.

Much of the six hour hearing focused on the DACA initiative. Already, more than 453,000 persons have applied for it, according to court testimony.

Kris Kobach, representing the ICE agents, said law-making is the domain of law-makers in Congress and not the executive branch of government. The agents believe Homeland Security officials have overstepped their authority in issuing memos on leniency in deportations, he said. The memos were written to establish priorities on those with serious criminal convictions.

DACA generally covers immigrants who were brought by their parents to the U.S. before the age of 16 and who are under the age of 31 and have a high school degree or are working toward it. The government has given two-year work permits to those who qualify.

Crane testified detained immigrants usually have a communal story for agents to avoid detention. The immigrants, Crane said, “are telling each other to lie and say they are DACA-eligible.”

Kobach has also represented the city of Farmers Branch in its six-year fight to defend an ordinance barring those in the U.S. unlawfully from rental housing. In that case, he’s teamed with Michael Jung of the Strasburger & Price law firm. The duo are paired in the deportation agents case, too.
Kobach is the Kansas Secretary of State and known for his involvement with states and cities that have attempted to crack down on illegal immigration.

Courtroom attendees today included Trammell S. Crow, one of the heirs of the late developer of the same name. Crow opened his wallet to the city of Farmers Branch and gave $500,000 to finance the legal brawl over its ordinance. The city has spent about $6 million in that legal fees and more bills are pending.

The case is now before an appellate court in New Orleans after a Dallas federal judge ruled it was unconstitutional.

http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2...rtations.html/

Added second article above to the Homepage:
http://www.alipac.us/content.php?r=1...d-deportations

BY LINDA BENTLEY | APRIL 10, 2013
Sonoran News

‘The DACA Directive is not only illegal, it is also dangerous’


Kris Kobach

DALLAS – On Monday, April 8, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Conner listened to nearly six hours of testimony in Crane v. Napolitano.

The legal challenge was filed on Aug. 23, 2012 by Attorney Kris Kobach (l) on behalf of Christopher Crane and nine other Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents against Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano, ICE Director John Morton and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas, in response to Napolitano’s Directive entitled “Exercising Prosecutorial Discretion with Respect to Individuals Who Came to the United States as Children,” implementing President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

The Directive instructs ICE officers to refrain from placing certain illegal aliens in removal proceedings and to take actions to facilitate the granting of deferred action to aliens who are unlawfully present in the United States.

The Directive also directs DHS personnel to grant employment authorization to certain beneficiaries of DACA.

The lawsuit seeks to prevent law enforcement officers from being forced to either violate federal law if they comply with the unlawful Directive or risk adverse employment action if they disobey the unlawful orders of the DHS Secretary.

It also seeks to preserve the balance of legislative and executive powers established by the U.S. Constitution.

The complaint asserts the Directive commands ICE officers to violate federal law and their oaths to uphold and support federal law, while it violates the Administrative Procedure Act and unconstitutionally usurps and encroaches upon the legislative powers of Congress, as defined in Article I of the U.S. Constitution.

The Directive also violates the obligation of the executive branch to faithfully execute the law, as required by Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution.

Plaintiffs brought the civil action to seek injunctive relief preventing the implementation of what Kobach states is an unlawful and unconstitutional Directive.

The orders plaintiffs received from their supervisors in the field are that an alien only needs to claim he is covered by the Directive in order to be released and offered the benefits of the Directive and ICE agents are prohibited from demanding that an alien provide proof that he meets the Directive’s criteria.

According to 8 U.S.C. § 1225(a)(1), “an alien present in the United States who has not been admitted … shall be deemed for purposes of this chapter an applicant for admission.”

This designation triggers 8 U.S.C. § 1225(a)(3), which requires that all applicants for admission “shall be inspected by immigration officers.” This in turn triggers 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A), which mandates “if the examining immigration officer determines that an alien seeking admission is not clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted, the alien shall be detained for a proceeding under section 1229a of this title.” The proceedings under 8 U.S.C. § 1229(a) are removal proceedings in U.S. immigration courts.

The complaint states the Directive orders plaintiffs to violate the above-listed provisions of federal law by declining to place certain aliens into removal proceedings, when federal law clearly requires they do so.

Plaintiffs filed a supplemental brief in support of their application for a preliminary injunction in January just days after United States Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) updated its “Frequently Asked Questions” (FAQ) webpage relating to the DACA process under the Directive.
According to the supplemental brief, the answers to three new FAQ indicate USCIS views an individual who is granted deferred action under the Directive as “authorized by the DHS to be present in the United States” and therefore “lawfully present.”

It states, “This information is relevant to the plaintiffs’ claim that the defendants are unlawfully using “prosecutorial discretion” to confer a benefit.

Not only does it exercise prosecutorial discretion to decline to place an alien into removal proceedings, it also confers an extremely significant legal benefit, which gives the alien more favorable treatment when seeking admission to the United States.

The brief goes on to state, “This information is also relevant to the claim that the defendants are unconstitutionally attempting to exercise legislative powers” and “violating the Administrative Procedure Act.”

The complaint points out Napolitano’s authority does not authorize her to order her subordinate officers or employees to confer a substantive benefit on aliens not authorized by federal law.
Although the DREAM Act would have established similar provisions as the DACA program, Kobach notes the DREAM Act has never been passed by both houses of Congress and signed into law by the President.

And, the fact that the DREAM Act has been proposed in Congress two dozen times, has been voted on by the U.S. House of Representatives and by the U.S. Senate, is a clear indication Congress understands federal legislation would be required to achieve these objectives.

Stating the application of “deferred action” to approximately 15 percent of aliens who are present without authorization is a legislative act of amnesty, and granting of a legislative benefit, is an act that otherwise exceeds Napolitano’s authority as a principal officer under the Constitution by usurping legislative authority.

Because the Directive is a legislative act implemented by the defendants through executive action, it violates Article I, section 1, of the U.S. Constitution.

Although O’Connor did not indicate when he might rule, Kobach told Sonoran News, “The hearing went very well. The DACA Directive is not only illegal, it is also dangerous. The ICE agent plaintiffs that were put on the stand made clear that the DACA Directive has forced them to release large numbers of criminal aliens onto the streets. It is commonplace for ICE to apprehend illegal aliens in county jails after the aliens have been arrested for various crimes.

Before the DACA Directive, ICE would have removed those illegal alien criminals from the United States. But now, under Obama’s Directive, if an illegal alien claims he is eligible for the Directive, the ICE agents have to take his word for it and turn him loose on the streets.”

Kobach is the Kansas Secretary of State and a law professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, specializing in constitutional law, election law, legislation, and immigration law.

Long a crusader in the fight against illegal immigration, Kobach has testified before Congress on 10 occasions, has been a regular guest on the O’Reilly Factor and has defended cities and states, including Arizona, that fight illegal immigration against ACLU lawsuits.

http://www.sonorannews.com/archives/...s-federal.html