Thread: Immigration lawsuit goes to hearing

Immigration lawsuit goes to hearing

Posted: Wednesday, January 14, 2015 7:45 pm
EMMA PEREZ-TREVIÑO | STAFF WRITER

BROWNSVILLE — Opponents and supporters of President Barack Obama’s enforcement of immigration laws, absent comprehensive immigration reform, meet in federal court Thursday as states, elected officials, and organizations defend their positions.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen will hear arguments on a request for a preliminary injunction filed by Texas and 24 other states on the deferred removal of about five million immigrants in the country illegally.

This hearing is in connection with the Dec. 3 lawsuit states filed against Obama, U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Leon Rodriguez, U.S. Border Patrol Deputy Chief Ronald D. Vitiello, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Thomas S. Winkowski.

In the lawsuit, the states maintain that Obama’s executive actions are unconstitutional and unprecedented, and that the Constitution vested Congress with the exclusive authority to make law and set immigration policies.

On the other hand, the Obama administration has argued that the Constitution and Congress have vested the Executive Branch and the Secretary of Homeland Security, in particular, with broad discretion over the enforcement of federal immigration law, including determining whether and when to remove particular undocumented immigrants. They say that the states seek to effectively commandeer federal enforcement prerogatives.

U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, D-Brownsville, is supporting the president’s position. He stated in his brief that Texas and the other states that filed the lawsuit lack standing.

“Just last month a federal district court denied a motion for a preliminary injunction and dismissed a similar challenge for lack of jurisdiction,” Vela said.

Hanen has denied the request to participate in the case of a Florida goat farmer, and California dentist and attorney Orly Taitz’s request that her immigration lawsuit, which is pending, be consolidated with that of the states’ case.

eperez-trevino@valleystar.com

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On the other hand, the Obama administration has argued that the Constitution and Congress have vested the Executive Branch and the Secretary of Homeland Security, in particular, with broad discretion over the enforcement of federal immigration law, including determining whether and when to remove particular undocumented immigrants. They say that the states seek to effectively commandeer federal enforcement prerogatives.

This is completely inaccurate. There is nothing in the US Constitution that empowers the federal government with any authority over immigration except to tax it. The Congress and states have the sole authority with respect to immigration, the Congress to establish a uniform naturalization law for immigrants who want to become citizens, and to stop all immigration that the States no longer want.

Someone out there, perhaps a few thousand lawyers with vested interest in the contrary of the Constitution, is very confused about the Constitution and the importation of labor as well as the difference between a naturalization authority and an immigration authority. States, not the Executive Branch or Congress, are the ones empowered to decide immigration under the Constitution.

It's well past time we get back to this very fundamental provision of the US Constitution, since deviation from it has bloated our population, irreparably harmed our citizens and posterity, diluted our economy, and bankrupted our treasury. It's all been a 100% fail, not unlike the deviation from the Constitution on income taxes. What we have to accept is that the founders of this country were an extraordinarily intelligent, well-educated, sophisticated, self-less and courageous group of people, a group the likes of which have never assembled since. The closest to them would be the Radical Republicans who forced the end of slavery in the United States. And perhaps we are at the point where we need just such a group again, this time to repeal the income tax and put a stop to this nonsensical insanity of massive immigration and free trade policies that only benefit other countries at the expense of our own.

Is there a group of 60 in the US Senate with at least the intelligence, educations, sophistication and selfless courage to do the right thing for American citizens and our Nation on something as needed and compelling as stopping this massive, illegal, unwanted and unneeded immigration?

We can hope.

Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez joins amicus brief in support of big U.S. immigration case


DIANNE SOLÍS Follow @disolis Email dsolis@dallasnews.com

Published: January 15, 2015 9:15 am

(Dallas Morning News )

In this file photo, Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez listens to testimony before county commissioners.

Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez has stepped into a showdown today in the Brownsville courtroom of U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen over President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration.

This week, Valdez joined in a friend-of-the-court brief from law enforcement chiefs that supports Obama’s measures to provide work permits and deportation halts on a case-by-case basis to up to 5 million undocumented immigrants. A hearing on the matter begins this morning.

The measures announced last Nov. 20th won’t provide a U.S. citizenship pathway.

Texas and two dozen other states argue the measures go beyond presidential power and the U.S. Constitution and want to block implementation. Supporting the federal government are various law enforcement chiefs, the District of Columbia and 12 states in amicus briefs.

The filing at the border federal court seeks a preliminary injunction stopping implementation of the executive actions. Hanen, a Republican judicial appointee, made blistering and broad criticisms in a border smuggling case of a 10-year-old girl in December 2013, as the flow increased of unaccompanied juveniles. Hanen’s order in that criminal case here is referred to in the states’ civil suit.

In the states’ suit, the plaintiffs allege “the unilateral suspension of the nation’s immigration laws is unlawful.” They argue the executive actions amount to “unilateral lawmaking.” The U.S. government refuted the claim and said the president was within his authority and that prosecutorial discretion has “more than a half a century” of controlling precedents.

Plaintiffs in the Brownsville suit include governors or attorney generals from Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Maine, Alabama, Oklahoma, Florida and South Carolina.

For the U.S. government, Valdez, a Democrat, is joined by the sheriffs from Harris County, El Paso County and New Orleans Parish, as well as police chiefs from Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Tucson and Denver.

The sheriffs and police chiefs said providing deferred action on deportations and work permits “encourages community cooperation with police, an essential element to effective policing and improving public safety…” The measures also shift federal law enforcement resources away from individuals with family ties and no criminal convictions, they said in their amicus brief.

The case follows another heard in Dallas before U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in 2013. The Dallas suit, too, dealt with alleged violations of the Administrative Procedure Act.

The focus, then, was the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, announced by Obama in mid-June of 2012. Eventually, the Dallas judge, a Republican appointee, ruled against the 10 federal immigration staffers who brought the suit against their bosses. The Dallas case is cited in federal pleadings.

Our reports on the Dallas suit can be here and here.

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