WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s new immigration program was supposed to begin accepting applications Wednesday from thousands of illegal immigrants hoping for relief from the threat of sudden deportation.
Instead, the administration abruptly postponed its launch plans after a federal judge in Texas temporarily blocked implementation of the new White House initiative.
In a decision late Monday, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen ruled that the deferred-deportation program should not move forward while a lawsuit filed by 26 states challenging it was being decided. Although Hanen did not rule on the constitutionality of Obama’s November executive order, he said there was sufficient merit to warrant a suspension of the new program while the case goes forward.
All told, Obama’s actions are projected to benefit as many as 5 million immigrants, many of whom could receive work permits if they qualified.
The effects of Hanen’s procedural ruling rippled through Washington and underscored a broader challenge to the president as he seeks to solidify the legacy of his administration.
Along with immigration, the fate of two of Obama’s other signature initiatives — a landmark health care law and a series of aggressive executive actions on climate change — now rest in the hands of federal judges.
Obama said he was confident that he would prevail, telling reporters: “The law is on our side, and history is on our side.”
“This is not the first time where a lower court judge has blocked something or attempted to block something that ultimately is going to be lawful,” he said at the Oval Office. “And I’m confident that it is well within my authority” to execute this policy.
On health care, the Supreme Court will hear arguments next month in King vs. Burwell, a case that calls into question whether millions of people who have bought coverage on the federal health exchanges are entitled to subsidies.
In April, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, just one rung below the Supreme Court, will hear three consolidated cases challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s use of a provision of the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.
The immigration lawsuit comes from the 26 states, 24 of which are led by GOP governors.
Hanen, a George W. Bush appointee, has been critical of Obama’s immigration policies in other cases. His decision was a major, if temporary, defeat for the administration.
“This ruling underscores what the president has already acknowledged publicly 22 times: He doesn’t have the authority to take the kinds of actions he once referred to as ‘ignoring the law’ and ‘unwise and unfair,’ ” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday.
What’s next
The White House vowed to appeal the ruling quickly to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said his agency would postpone plans to begin accepting applications in an expansion of a 2012 program that defers deportations of immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children. A second program, designed to protect from deportation the undocumented parents of U.S. citizens and permanent legal residents, was not scheduled to begin accepting applications until late May. Its future remains uncertain.
