Immigration

Ian Milhiser at Think Progress provides some “inside baseball” legal analysis that lawyers love, but the general public frequently does not understand, nor appreciates. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will take up the merits case of President Obama’s executive orders on immigration on July 6. It’s always a dangerous thing to try to read tea leaves from orders, but Milhiser finds reason for optimism in the Court’s order last week. Federal Court Offers Ray Of Hope To Obama’s Immigration Programs:

[O]n Thursday, the Fifth Circuit sent a letter to attorneys in this case asking for briefing “addressing pertinent portions of the majority and dissenting opinions issued by” the panel that included Judges Jerry Smith and Jennifer Elrod. Significantly, however, the letter also advised the attorneys to be “mindful of the relationship between motions panels and merits panels as stated in” the court’s 1997 decision in Mattern v. Eastman Kodak Co.. That decision held that “a panel hearing the merits of an appeal may review a motions panel ruling, and overturn it where necessary,” and that “the merits panel must be especially vigilant where, as here, the issue is one of jurisdiction.”

So, to translate this somewhat arcane mix of legalize, the panel that will consider Judge Andrew Hanen’s order in July is not bound by Smith and Elrod’s decision refusing to stay Hanen’s order. Indeed, this new panel even has the power to “overturn” Smith and Elrod’s decision.

That’s very good news for the the families hoping to benefit from Obama’s new policies, because Judge Smith’s opinion on behalf of himself and Judge Elrod could be simply devastating to the Obama administration’s legal arguments if it were binding on future panels, largely because it calls upon the appeals court to give an extraordinary degree of deference to Judge Hanen’s conclusions.

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In a new poll published by the Pew Research Center, nearly three-quarters of Americans say they support a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants, including a majority of Republican respondents.

So why hasn’t Congress enacted comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship? Because Tea-Publicans in Congress — aka the Mass Deportation Party — stand alone in opposition to immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship. Poll Finds Big Support for Pathway to Citizenship:

[N]early three-quarters of Americans say they support a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants, according to a poll published Thursday by the Pew Research Center.

In the survey, 72 percent of Americans said immigrants here illegally should be allowed to stay if they meet some requirements, results that have varied little over the last two years. They included 42 percent of Americans who say those immigrants should be allowed to become citizens and 26 percent who say they should only become permanent residents.

Among Republicans, a majority of those questioned — 56 percent — supports a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants. Republicans are generally critical of their party’s performance on illegal immigration, with 59 percent saying the party is not doing a good job representing their views on how to deal with illegal immigration.

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If you listen to Tea-Publicans tell the tale, they would have you believe that the U.S.-Mexico border is unprotected and illegal immigrants are pouring across in record numbers, and that secret Muslim Kenyan Marxist Black man in the White House is doing nothing about it!

Of course, what Tea-Publicans believe, because they live in the epistemic closure of the closed information feedback loop of the conservative media entertainment complex, is distorted by the fact-free world of right-wing propaganda.

The Washington Post reports today, Illegal border crossings said to hit 20-year low:

As the Department of Homeland Security continues to pour money into border security, evidence is emerging that illegal immigration flows have fallen to their lowest level in at least two decades. The nation’s population of illegal immigrants, which more than tripled, to 12.2 million, between 1990 and 2007, has dropped by about 1 million, according to demographers at the Pew Research Center.

A key — but largely overlooked — sign of these ebbing flows is the changing makeup of the undocumented population. Until recent years, illegal immigrants tended to be young men streaming across the Southern border in pursuit of work. But demographic data show that the typical illegal immigrant now is much more likely someone who is 35 or older and has lived in the United States for a decade or more.

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David Leopold explains what the panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals got wrong  in keeping the stay order of the U.S. District Court for Texas in place, blocking President Obama’s executive orders on immigration from going into effect, and why the full Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals should rule in favor of the Obama administration. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral argument on the merits case beginning on July 6. No surprise from 5th Circuit on immigration, but Judge Hanen’s reliance on “sublime intelligences” exposed:

Yesterday, in a 2/1 split decision, a three judge motions panel of the 5^th circuit appeals court refused to lift the injunction placed on President Obama’s immigration executive actions last February by Texas Judge Andrew Hanen. Hanen’s order temporarily blocked the implementation of DACA expansion and DAPA, which offer an estimated 5 million undocumented DREAMers and parents a chance to apply for a brief temporary reprieve from deportation.  The Obama administration had asked the 5^th circuit panel to temporarily lift the injunction while the court heard the full appeal of Hanen’s ruling.

Yesterday’s refusal to lift the injunction comes as no surprise.  The 5th Circuit Appeals court is considered by many to be the most conservative federal appeals court in the county and the two Republican appointed judges who declined to lift the stay, Jerry E. Smith and Jennifer Walker Elrod, are among the most conservative judges on the court. In a very narrowly tailored opinion they reasoned that the State of Texas would be harmed as a result of increased driver’s license costs due to DAPA and that the executive actions likely violate the technical rule making requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act.

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