Immigration

Obama administration will not appeal from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals

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In somewhat of a surprise, the New York Times reports that President Obama Won’t Take Immigration Case to Supreme Court Yet:

ImmigrantsIn a statement on Wednesday, officials from the Justice Department said they would not ask the Supreme Court to reverse this week’s decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that continues to block the president’s immigration actions.

The statement said the department was committed to defending the president’s actions and getting the immigration programs in place with certainty.

“The department believes the best way to achieve this goal is to focus on the ongoing appeal on the merits of the preliminary injunction itself,” said Patrick Rodenbush, a spokesman for the Justice Department. “Although the department continues to disagree with the Fifth Circuit’s refusal to stay the district court’s preliminary injunction, the department has determined that it will not seek a stay from the Supreme Court.”

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The right is contemptuous of American democracy

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SupremeCourtI posted yesterday about the U.S. Supreme Court agreeing to hear the appeal  of Evenwel v. Abbott which will be heard and decided next Term. The Court will define the meaning of “one-person, one-vote,” based upon a radical theory put forward by the right-wing Project on Fair Representation.

Ed Kilgore at the Political Animal blog and Paul Waldman at the Washington Post’s Plum Line noticed the similarities between the radical theory of the Project for Fair Representation and the radical theory of the Libertarian lawyers pursuing the King v. Burwell case.

I also noticed these similarities. In fact, it is part of a conservative legal strategy to use the courts to undo much of the progress of the 20th Century. This strategy has been pursued for a number of years, but was recently crystalized in the latest book from Charles Murray, “By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission,” that has the right-wing all in a lather. (More on this below).

Ed Kilgore writes, Here’s How Republicans Could Repel Latinos Even More!

We talked briefly yesterday about SCOTUS accepting a challenge to the traditional understanding of “one person one vote” in a case from Texas. This is turning out to be even a bigger deal than I initially expected, particularly among Latino groups who see it as a direct threat to their political representation in both Washington and in state capitals.

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Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals leaves stay of Obama immigration executive orders in place

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ImmigrantsAs discussed in previous posts, the judges comprising the three judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals left little doubt that they would uphold the order of stay from U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen, blocking implementation of President Obama’s executive orders on immigration.

The next step is a petition for rehearing en banc before the full Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, a motion disfavored in the appellate courts, and/or an appeal directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. That would be my guess.

Keep in mind that this appeal involves only the order of stay pending a trial on the merits. There has been no decsision on the merits.

Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSblog reports, Appeals court keeps immigration policy on hold:

In a decision that seems likely to be challenged in the Supreme Court, a divided federal appeals court refused on Tuesday (.pdf) to permit the Obama administration to put into effect its new policy to temporarily spare more than four million undocumented immigrants from being deported.   The government, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled, has not made a case for going forward while the legality of the program is under review in the courts.

The two-to-one decision, leaving in place a federal judge’s nationwide order that forbids for the time being the enforcement of the policy announced last November, did not settle the legality of the program.  That is a question that will come up later, with a hearing on it scheduled in the Fifth Circuit for the first week in July.  Even so, the administration is free in the meantime to ask the Supreme Court to step in on the near-term status of the deferred deportation policy.

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Progressives: Let’s Move Hillary and Bernie to the Left (video)

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Several long-term politicians and a few wannabes have thrown their hats into the ring for the 2016 presidential bid (or are at least hinting at it). Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and Republicans Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, and Carly Fiornia have declared. (See the complete list on the New York Times here.) Progressives– disappointed … Read more

Mass Deportation Party files amicus brief in Fifth Circuit immigration appeal

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The Hill reports that the Mass Deportation Party has filed an amicus brief in the immigration appeal before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. So much for reaching out to Latino voters in 2016. 113 Republicans back lawsuit against Obama’s immigration actions:

ImmigrantsRepublicans in Congress on Monday entered the court battle over President Obama’s latest moves to ease deportations for immigrants living in the country illegally.

Texas and 25 other states have challenged the legality of the unilateral actions, arguing that the president overstepped his executive power with programs halting deportations and granting work permits to certain groups of illegal immigrants.

The Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (Va.), are siding squarely with the states, arguing Obama’s executive action “changes the law and sets a new policy, exceeding the executive’s constitutional authority and disrupting the delicate balance of powers.”

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