Supreme Court blocked President Obama's Executive Order Amnesty
Deadlocked Supreme Court blocks Obama on immigration
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http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/dd8b...lf_Richard.png Richard Wolf, USA TODAY 10:41 a.m. EDT June 23, 2016
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court blocked President Obama's effort to protect more than 4 million undocumented immigrants from the threat of deportation Thursday, deadlocking 4-4 over a plan that had divided the nation as well as the justices.
The tie vote leaves intact lower federal court rulings that stopped the program in its tracks more than a year ago, after Texas and 25 other states claimed Obama lacked the authority to go around Congress.
It was a sudden, crushing defeat for millions of parents who came to the country illegally and have lived in the shadows, often for decades. The administration had hoped that at least one of the more conservative justices -- possibly Chief Justice John Roberts -- would rule that the plan posed no financial threat to the states and therefore could not be challenged in court.
Like several other tie rulings since Justice Antonin Scalia's death in February left the court with only eight justices, the one-sentence opinion simply announced that the court was "equally divided" and unable to muster a majority for either side.
That's all opponents needed to block the "deferred action" program, which would have offered qualifying parents of children who were born in the United States or are legal residents the right to remain in the country for three years and apply for work authorization. The president, with two lower court strikes against him, needed an elusive fifth vote.
The immigration battle was waged on two fronts before the court: The administration fought with the states as well as with the House of Representatives, which previously blocked the president's effort to confer legal status to some of the nation's more than 11 million illegal immigrants. It melded with a presidential campaign in which Donald Trump has promised to crack down and deport the same people that Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders want to help.
Obama announced the "Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents," or DAPA program, in November 2014. It would extend protections to more than 4 million parents who meet the criteria, just as a 2012 program did for immigrants brought to the United States as children. More than 700,000 have qualified for that earlier program.
Once qualified, parents also could apply for work authorization, pay taxes and receive some government benefits, such as Social Security. Those with criminal backgrounds or who have arrived since 2010 would not qualify.
Texas challenged Obama's authority to implement the policy by executive action, rather than going through Congress. Federal district court Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville, Texas, upheld the challenge in February 2015 and blocked the program from being implemented nationwide. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld that ruling last November in a 2-1 decision.
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The Supreme Court agreed in January to hear the case, expanding its scope to include whether Obama's action violated the Constitution's "Take Care Clause" by failing to faithfully execute the nation's immigration laws.
In written briefs and oral arguments, the Justice Department contended that the policy only would make official what was happening anyway — undocumented immigrants who do not have criminal records and are not priorities for deportation are generally left alone. The government only has enough funds to deport about 400,000 a year, they said.
Lawyers for Texas and the House of Representatives countered that while the president can decide not to deport individual immigrants, only Congress can defer action on a class-wide basis.
The state's injury claim focused on what it said would have been the need to spend money issuing driver's licenses to hundreds of thousands of immigrants. Federal officials said that was Texas' choice, and not a ground for a lawsuit.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...tion/83515218/
