Posted on 04/23/2015 7:42:44 AM PDT by Hostage
The Obama administration’s lawyer, Benjamin Mizer, the acting assistant attorney general of the Civil Division at the Justice Department, did not have an easy time in his argument last Friday before a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in the immigration lawsuit filed by 26 states.
He was questioned about all of the claims being made by the government, from the administration’s argument that the states don’t have standing to file a lawsuit to the assertion that everything President Obama has done is within the administration’s prosecutorial discretion.
The substantive merits of district court Judge Andrew Hanen’s Feb. 16 injunction order was not before the panel; just the government’s request that the 5th Circuit stay (or lift) the injunction while the appeal is pending.
(See below for the rest of the article)
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
As previously reported in several outlets, this hearing bodes well for upholding the Preliminary Injunction against Obama's Executive Amnesty but even if the Appeals Court rules as expected, there is another moment of dread that awaits.
I was particularly drawn to the Author's note that if this Appeals Court denies Obama's motion to lift the injunction that Obama can file an emergency motion before the US Supreme Court.
I had thought previously that it was possible that an emergency motion could be taken to the US Supreme Court but to see it written by a columnist of a news service with substantial circulation gave me pause.
I do not trust the US Supreme Court to do the right thing which in this case would be to deny a hearing until the lower courts have done their work.
This case represents a large part of the end game for Obama's "Fundamental Transformation of America" and Americans are responding to this end game by playing a tactic to run out the clock on Obama.
If the US Supreme Court denies to hear an emergency motion from Obama to lift the lower court's injunctive order, then it could take until the end of Obama's term to see a ruling on the merits. Executive Amnesty could then be left on the ash heap of Obama's reign.
If the US Supreme Court were to hear such an emergency motion, then Americans will be sitting on the edge of their seat in the next few months.
For those tuning in, this case is about stopping Obama from importing a large alien voting bloc to win elections for the next decades. If Obama succeeds, the result will be America's certain demise.
(The rest of the article)
Every seat in the courtroom was taken, and the court fed an audio of the arguments into two additional courtrooms, while pro-administration supporters protested outside the federal courthouse in New Orleans. Oral arguments before the 5th Circuit normally take 40 minutes, but the arguments on Friday lasted for two-and-a-half hours.
The Obama Administration’s Strange Logic
As I listened to Mizer responding to questions from the judges, I was shaking my head at some of his answers. One of his justifications for the president’s actions towards the beginning of the argument was so strange, I wasn’t sure I heard it correctly.
Judge Jerry Smith asked Mizer if the president’s plan wasn’t distinct from the “exercise of prosecutorial discretion” because it “confers benefits.” The plan, for example, provides not only deferred action to illegal aliens, but provides them with “Employment Authorization Documents” or work permits.
Mizer said there were “good reasons to grant” such permits because it would allow an individual with a work permit “to work on the books rather than off the books.” Since it is a “third-party crime” for an employer to employ an illegal alien, providing the work permits “is actually reducing crime by reducing the third-party crime.”
In other words, rather than enforcing federal immigration law that prohibits employers from employing any noncitizen who doesn’t have a work permit, it is better for the government (without authority) to issue work permits to illegal aliens so employers won’t break the law the administration doesn’t want to enforce. The government has to break the law so employers won’t have to.
That is an example of the twisted logic being used by the Justice Department to defend this case.
Case Won By EPA Helps States Opposing Obama’s Immigration Actions
Another issue brought up by Judge Smith was quite ironic, given the administration’s push on global climate change. While Mizer was arguing that the states have no standing to challenge the president’s immigration plan and his nonenforcement of federal immigration laws, Judge Smith pointed out that this case seems similar to Massachusetts v. EPA (2007).
In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the states had standing to challenge the EPA’s then-nonregulation of so-called greenhouse gases. Based on that decision, the states would seem to have standing in this case according to Smith.
Obama Lawyer Stumped By Question About Precedent for Preserving Status Quo
Mizer also did not have a good answer to the argument made by Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller, who said that the injunction simply maintains the status quo on immigration law that has existed for decades.
Judge Jennifer Elrod said the court was “big about [preserving] the status quo” as was the Supreme Court “in the middle of cases.” She asked Mizer if it would not be a “logistical mess” if the 5th Circuit lifted the stay and the government proceeded with issuing work permits and tax benefits, but then the states ultimately won the lawsuit. Illegal aliens who are legalized by the president’s program “could end up with a big check and you’d need to knock on their door and ask for it back.”
Mizer’s only answer to that was that the government would be faced with “additional logistical steps” and illegal immigrants probably would not be able to collect tax credits during the time the courts were deciding this case because there are “a lot of hoops that an individual had to jump through.”
The Justice Department has also argued that even if the injunction is not lifted in its entirety, it should at least be geographically narrowed to only apply to Texas or the other states in the lawsuit. But when Judge Stephen Higginson asked Mizer if he had any prior court decisions that found a preliminary injunction was not narrowly tailored because it applied too broadly geographically, Mizer could not name a single case directly on point. Higginson said he had not been able to find a single case supporting that proposition either.
Was Obama’s Immigration Plan Really Not Subject to This Law?
Throughout his argument, Mizer kept saying that the president’s plan was unreviewable and was not subject to the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which requires that all new regulatory policies by federal agencies be promulgated with advance notice and the opportunity for comment by the public and interested parties. This was a key finding in Judge Hanen’s injunction order.
Judge Elrod then asked Mizer a question related to this claim that almost had Mizer dancing a jig to avoid answering it. She asked Mizer whether the states could challenge the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents program if it gave “voting rights” to aliens: “would that be reviewable and would that be unconstitutional?”
Mizer clearly did not want to answer that question, saying that was not the situation before the court. “I’m asking you a hypothetical” insisted Judge Elrod. “Would that be subject to APA [Administrative Procedure Act] notice and comment if it gave voting rights or just substantively unconstitutional and illegal?” Judge Elrod asked Mizer again.
She had to ask Mizer the question four times before he finally said that it was “possible” that a challenge could be brought by the states under such circumstances, but that this situation was completely different. The fact that Mizer did not want to directly answer that question about voting and that Judge Elrod had to keep after him to try to get an answer was odd to say the least.
If the three-judge panel denies the government’s request for a stay, the Justice Department can file an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court. If the 5th Circuit (or the Supreme Court) grants the request, then there is no doubt that the administration will move as quickly as possible to implement the president’s amnesty plan while the case is pending in the 5th Circuit.
That would ensure that if the states were to ultimately prevail, trying to reverse what the Department of Homeland Security would do in the interim would be a “logistical mess.”
Can you say ,"Justice Roberts?" Obama has no worries mate.
PING
The twisted lunacy of the left knows no bounds. Yet that they seem to make headway, is truly startling.
why is it when dem presidents pick a SC justice, they never swerve from ideology, but when repubs, i.e., bush i and ii, both losers in my book, pick them, they fold like a lawn chair
Watershed moment.
Indeed Obama has been using his or lese bag of information for the last six years.
“to issue work permits to illegal aliens so employers won’t break the law the administration doesn’t want to enforce.”
That’s the real problem right there. Employers should be forced
to pay and pay dearly for their criminal culpability in the
usurpation of the United States by knowingly hiring illegal
aliens. They are traitors and should have everything they
own confiscated as ill gotten gains. If they would go after
the criminal employers that alone would stop 80% of the
invasion.
In other words Obama is arguing that because something is inconvenient laws do not apply to him.
I’m going to tell that to the IRS.
This is all show anyway. Obama’s whole plan now is to make sure the illegals get their big IRS “refund.” It is already documented fact that illegals vote. Obama simply reclassified any citizen of central American countries are refugees and is using tax payer dollars to fly them here. Obama will simply ignore any judgement that goes against his royal decree.
The list, Ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
Does anyone know if this court publish transcripts of oral arguments, like the supreme Court does?
I am sure they are recorded. Whether they are transcribed by the court and released is a question. Probably audio discs are available and interested parties can pay to have the audio transcribed.
I downloaded the MP3. It’s a shame they aren’t transcribed. Don’t know if I’ll be able to listen to the whole thing.
There are reasonably priced online transcription services. They cost less if they do not need to certify as registered court transcriptionists.
Can you send a link for the MP3?
Thanks for the heads up....this is a big one
So much breaking a news coming out today. Thanks I’d have missed this
Just listened to rush discuss the NYT article. One of many from the Vast MSM attacking Hill-Billy Inc today
I'm just kind of disappointed that they don't provide transcripts. In the big scheme of things, the cost of it is pretty minimal, especially since the court will have a transcript produced. Why not provide it to the public, since the public is paying for it anyway? Besides, from an infrastructure cost, it's trivial to transmit a text file that may be at most a few hundred Kbytes, compared to a 140MB mp3 file.
Thanks.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.