Christie joins court fight vs. Obama immigration plan
Bob Jordan, Asbury Park (N.J.) Press 6:49 p.m. EDT March 26, 2015
TRENTON, N.J. — Gov. Chris Christie has quietly aligned New Jersey with Texas and other red states in a lawsuit trying to thwart President Obama from allowing millions of people in the U.S. illegally — mostly parents and young people — to avoid deportation.
Christie and the governors of Louisiana and South Dakota filed a brief Monday urging an appeals court handling the Texas lawsuit to continue a freeze on Obama's executive orders on the deportation-relief program he announced in a Nov. 20 national broadcast.
Advocates for immigrants accused Christie of playing politics with the issue. Christie is a potential candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
Because Christie aggressively courted Latino support in his 2013 re-election campaign and won 51 percent of the group's vote, the court filing gives him the chance "to play it both ways" on immigration, Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray said Thursday.
"To the core base of Republican primary voters out there, Christie can now say, 'I'm supportive of fighting this overstepping of Obama's executive power on immigration,' hopefully to make that group think he's tough on immigration," Murray said. "He can also turn around and say to the donors and establishment folks at private parties that he has good election results with Latinos."
Christie didn't mention the filing Monday night on his Ask the Governor radio show and also didn't talk about it at a town hall in Morris County Tuesday or in his visits Wednesday to Stafford for a ribbon-cutting at a drug abuse rehabilitation facility and Philadelphia for a political fundraiser.
Christie spokesman Kevin Roberts said, "I can confirm that the governor did sign on but will otherwise refer you to the brief text itself."
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments April 17 in the Justice Department's challenge to a federal judge's ruling that placed a temporary freeze on the immigration actions.
A Rutgers-Eagleton poll in December found 53% of New Jerseyans in favor of Obama's immigration policy.
Obama wants to provide an opportunity for undocumented immigrants to apply for three years of relief from deportation and work permits, available to those who arrived in the U.S. before 2010 and were under 16 years old or have at least one child who is a citizen or legal resident.
However, a national poll by Paragon Insights showed majority opposition to the policy and sharp pushback from Republicans (86% oppose it; 12% support it).
But Gordon MacInnes, head of the liberal New Jersey Policy Perspective group, said Christie was taking "a big step backward on immigration policy."
"This could clearly harm hundreds of thousands of New Jersey residents the governor represents," MacInnes said.
MacInnes said Obama's proposal benefits an estimated 149,000 undocumented immigrants in New Jersey, "people who have been living in New Jersey for a long time, most of whom are working, some paying income taxes, and others paying sales and other taxes," he said.
"To prevent these people from stepping out of the shadows doesn't make moral or economic sense," MacInness added.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...plan/70511830/
