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Breaking: SCOTUS to Hear Immigration Case
From the NYT:
Fourteen months ago, Mr. Obama ordered the creation of a program intended to allow as many as five million illegal immigrants who are the parents of citizens or of lawful permanent residents to apply for a program sparing them from deportation and providing them work permits. The program was called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA. The president has said the program was the result of years of frustration with Republicans in Congress who had repeatedly refused to support bipartisan Senate legislation to update immigration laws. In an Oval Office address just before Thanksgiving in 2014, Mr. Obama excoriated Republicans for refusing to cooperate and told millions of illegal immigrants, “You can come out of the shadows.”
But the president’s promise has gone unfulfilled. A coalition of 26 states, led by the attorney general in Texas, a Republican, quickly filed a lawsuit accusing the president of ignoring federal procedures for changing rules and of abusing the power of his office by sidestepping Congress. In February, Judge Andrew S. Hanen of Federal District Court in Brownsville, Tex., entered a preliminary injunction shutting down the program while the legal case proceeded. The government appealed, and on Nov. 9 a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, affirmed the injunction.
And interestingly:
Published in Immigration, LawThe court did broaden the scope of the case, asking the parties to address an additional and fundamental question: whether the administration’s plan violates the constitutional command that the president “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
Sheesh! Ya’ think?
So, depending on what mood Justice Kennedy is in when he wakes up one day, we may well get a 5-4 decision that the President is not obligated to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Or at best, a 5-4 decision that he must “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
Sigh.
Seawriter
I think Obama’s words are going to work against him. I’m guessing a failure for the Obama administration 5-4.
The Supremes don’t believe THEY should solemnly execute the laws. Why would they rule that the president should?
His admin has a very poor average before the court.
It’s hard to see what the court could do to make Obama change course. A court doesn’t have the power to make a president do anything, or stop doing anything. All it can do is refuse to enforce laws it finds invalid, thus making it impossible for the executive to obtain a conviction thereunder. But in this case, no one is being prosecuted. Instead, in this case the executive is not prosecuting people. So what’s the court to do? SCOTUS: “Mr. President, you must enforce the law”. POTUS: “Make me.” The only solution for this is political. The court case is a side show.
I think we should probably prepare ourselves for a 6-3 vote in the God King’s favor. They still have nekkid pictures of Roberts or something, and Kennedy will always side with the petulant one on very important social issues, Constitution be damned. The liberal four are, of course, always a lock.
So under this plan a baby is like an anchor that helps to keep the parents in the country, even though they are here illegally. I wonder if there are any politically correct terms to describe these children?
Refugees is the new black. (In the fashion sense, not the skin sense)
I am confident that G.W. Bush loyalist John Roberts anxiously awaits to memorialize that the United States of America is a borderless world nation and all who come here are franchised citizens endowed by judicial decree with all the Obamacare benefits offered until the federal reserve runs out of ink to print money – and that may be a while.
This one didn’t pass the Congress which is the Roberts barometer. It’s why he failed so hard on healthcare and why he should come down on the constitutional side of this one.
Oh, this ought to be interesting! I feel fairly good about “our” side in this case, because the President seems to have violated the law pretty clearly. But I’ve gotten pretty jaded about the Supreme Court. “Conservative-leaning” hardly describes it, press descriptions notwithstanding.
Honestly, I don’t want a “conservative” court; I want an originalist court. I want a court that looks at the Constitution and says it means what it says, and it’s not a “living document” whose meaning exists only in the present whims of a justice.
Anchor? Baby? Say, that’s catchy. Oh, wait! I have to go to my safe space!
“Mr. Chief Justice, there’s a call from the White House on line one.”
I agree. On this one Roberts isn’t the vote to be worried about.
I assume the lovely ladies in black are down the line for anything Obama supports. Who do you think are the others, if not Roberts, who will join them?
Good point as usual. Immigration reform was a pet Bush project thus my doubting Roberts’ fealty to the Constitution.
Roberts is the vote I’m most sure of given his history on similar questions. Scalia and Thomas are almost certainly good on this, as the specifics of this case should override their usual deference to agencies.
I don’t know enough about Alito’s thoughts on these issues to speak confidently, but on big questions he usually makes the right call.
Kennedy is the big unknown. Who the knows with that guy.
Who knows, but I see this as a loser for the Administration. Kennedy’s “questionable” votes are in a completely different area, and he can be a reliable conservative on some issues. As always, the sad thing is that the four liberal Justices will stay in lockstep on a fairly obvious abuse of power.