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Clearing the way for the Supreme Court to rule on immigration policy without a distraction, a federal trial judge in Texas on Tuesday postponed a sweeping order that had added controversial new requirements for the federal government in carrying out the policy. U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen of Brownsville delayed all facets of his broad May 19 order until August 22, when he will hold a status conference. Some lawyers involved in challenges to the Hanen ruling had vowed to go to the Supreme Court promptly if the judge or a federal appeals court had not acted to delay...

U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen – the Brownsville federal judge who halted President Barack Obama’s 2014 executive action on immigration – has permitted a stay of the Court’s order that would have required the Department of Homeland Security to produce a list of tens of thousands of immigrants who benefited prematurely from the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) policy. Hanen has given the Department of Justice until Aug. 22 to produce evidence showing that he was not deliberately misled by the administration’s attorneys regarding when the government would begin accepting applications for DAPA...

Texas Judge Andrew Hanen previously sanctioned the DOJ for lying to him several times in his courtroom. His sanctions had three basic elements: DOJ lawyers attend ethics class annually for a period of five years. DOJ provide a list of every name, address, and location of each of the 100,000+ DAPA recipients who was granted unlawful immunity. Attorney General Lynch to deliver a corrective plan within 60 days. (link) The DOJ freaked out and requested a hearing to discuss. The hearing is tomorrow: The Obama administration accused a federal judge Tuesday of sowing “fear and confusion” among illegal immigrants, potentially...

The Obama administration accused a federal judge Tuesday of sowing “fear and confusion” among illegal immigrants, potentially scaring them away from signing up for President Obama’s deportation amnesty by demanding immigration officials submit names of tens of thousands of migrants who’ve already enrolled. Justice Department lawyers also asked Judge Andrew S. Hanen not to force thousands of attorneys to take remedial ethics classes — an order the judge issued two weeks ago after he concluded that the administration intentionally and repeatedly misled him by implementing part of the amnesty, even as they assured the court it wasn’t in operation yet....

Strongly disputing a federal judge’s power to issue a sweeping order to punish the government over ethical issues in the hard-fought case over federal immigration policy, the Obama administration began moving swiftly on Tuesday to block that order. It asked the judge to put the issue on hold, and promised an immediate appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The department argued on Tuesday that the part of his order forcing the government to hand over personal information about youths who had benefited from one of the changes in policy would affect about 50,000 individuals, and...

The Obama administration has asked a Brownsville-based judge to rethink an order that requires the federal government to turn over the private information of thousands of undocumented immigrants. The May 19 order from U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen asserted that the federal government’s attorneys intentionally misled the court during proceedings over the Obama administration's controversial executive order on immigration, known as Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents. The court order included instructions for the federal government to provide Hanen a list of the immigrants who benefited prematurely from DAPA. But in a filing Tuesday, the federal...

In a stunning rebuke to the Department of Justice Thursday, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen ordered annual ethics classes for the DOJ attorneys who were "intentionally deceptive" during the course of executive amnesty litigation. At issue was whether the DOJ intentionally misled the judge into believing that Obama's DACA amnesty program would be halted until he made a ruling on a lawsuit brought by 26 states.From November of 2014 until February of 2015, while the judge was still deciding the case, the Department of Homeland Security gave more than 108,000 illegal immigrants three-year reprieves. They did this after DOJ lawyers...

A federal judge has ordered annual ethics classes for Justice Department attorneys as a punishment for being "intentionally deceptive" during litigation over President Obama's executive immigration orders. "Such conduct is certainly not worthy of any department whose name includes the word 'Justice,'" U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen wrote in a withering order released Thursday. Justice Department attorneys misled the court about when the Department of Homeland Security would begin implementing President Obama's executive order granting "deferred action" to illegal immigrants whose children are citizens. In doing so, they tricked the 26 states who filed a lawsuit into "foregoing a request...

Judge Hanen has ordered all DOJ attorneys appearing in any federal court of the 26 affected states to attend three hour mandatory ethics classes, this year and every year, for a period of five years. In addition Judge Hanen has given Loretta Lynch 60 days to file a written response outlining what specific corrective action she is personally taking to ensure all DOJ attorneys are truthful and honest: DOJ lawyers attend ethics class. DOJ provide a list of every name, address, and location of each DAPA recipient who was granted unlawful immunity. Attorney General to deliver a corrective plan within...

No matter which way the Supreme Court turns on President Obama’s ambitious move to overhaul immigration policy, it can get to a result only if a fifth vote can be found to make a majority among the eight Justices. That, at least, seemed likely after a ninety-minute argument on Monday in United States v. Texas, the fiercely contested courthouse battle between the White House and Congress over who among eleven-or-so million immigrants can stay in the country without a specific legal right to do so. The Court’s four liberal members were working extra hard to make the central issue whether...

On Friday, the U.S. Justice Department filed a 35-page petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review Texas v. U.S., the case filed by 26 states against President Obama's immigration amnesty plan. The government is appealing a preliminary injunction that stopped implementation of Obama's amnesty plan, which was issued by a federal district court and upheld by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Nov. 9. In an odd coincidence, Donald Verrilli, the solicitor general, filed the petition on the one-year anniversary of Obama's speech to the nation on Nov. 20, 2014, where he announced his unprecedented, unilateral action to...

The main front in the legal war over President Barack Obama's immigration policies may have moved to the Supreme Court, but a federal judge in Texas isn't letting that stop him from taking up a curious side issue in the case: whether birther Orly Taitz and controversial Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio are entitled to join the fight. Both sides in the lawsuit that halted Obama's latest round of immigration moves nearly a year ago have told U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen they want the case put on ice until the Supreme Court announces whether it will take up the major...

The highest court of the country announced earlier in January that it would take the case on legality of Obama’s executive order on immigration, which provides granting a provisional status in USA for over 5 million of illegal immigrants. The case was brought by Texas as well as 25 other states claiming illegality of Obama’s executive actions. In February 2015 US District Court Judge in Texas barred the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from going ahead with the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents also called Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) and Deferred Action for...

HOUSTON (CN) - President Obama's blocked plan to defer deportation for millions of immigrants is headed for judgment day at the Supreme Court and his administration honed its arguments this week in a brief to the court. Immigration is arguably the most divisive and fraught issue today in the United States. Look no further than the Republican presidential campaign trail, where Donald Trump vows daily to make Mexico pay for a border wall and Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, both sons of Cuban immigrants, have accused each other of supporting amnesty for the country's estimated 11 million undocumented residents, whom...

The first oral arguments in U.S. versus Texas (Case No. 15-674), the controversial case surrounding the executive action on immigration, will be presented before the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) on Monday, April 18th, according to the high court. During the hearing, SCOTUS will reportedly hear arguments regarding whether: President Barack Obama overstepped his authority in issuing the executive action in November 2014. Individual states, like Texas, have the standing to challenge the executive action (in light of the subsidies these states would be required to provide if the executive action goes into effect). While the President is backed...

Backers of Obama's plan say halting deportations helps families and businesses. As presidential contenders from both parties wrangle over how best to thwart illegal immigration, the challenge to President Barack Obama's plan to delay deportation of about 5 million of those immigrants soon moves center stage at the U.S. Supreme Court. Supporters of the president's plan last week filed nearly two dozen friend-of-the-court briefs highlighting adverse consequences of a ruling against the program, and that also show the benefits to businesses, law enforcement and social welfare if the justices allow Obama to halt the deportations. Texas and 25 other states...

On March 28th, lawyers for the 26 Republican Governors and Attorneys General, led by the State of Texas and its Attorney General Ken Paxton, filed their response brief in the lawsuit they initiated in December of 2014 to stop President Obama’s executive actions. David Leopold did an analysis of that brief, noting, “Like everything else about this case, the brief is politically motivated and filled with confusion and obfuscation.” But misleading the Supreme Court is hardly the brainchild of the Texas lawyers. It started with U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, a sympathetic jurist whom the GOP plaintiffs sought out to...

Although oral arguments are scheduled in New Orleans in Texas v. United States for July 10, things are still cooking in Brownsville. Judge Hannen will hold a hearing on 6/23: The Court will hold a hearing on all pending matters on June 23, 2015 at 10:30 a.m. The parties have indicated a willingness to meet and confer on certain discovery/remedial action matters. The Court certainly encourages that course of action but requests that it occur prior to this hearing.

With arguments before the Supreme Court in U.S. v. Texas ten days away, the docket in Brownsville keeps on chugging along. A few minutes ago, Judge Hannen issued an order, noting that “In the immediate future, this Court intends to issue an order concerning the misrepresentations made to it and Plaintiffs’ counsel by counsel for the Government.” But even stranger, the government submitted four envelopes to the court to review in camera, but asked the court not to open envelopes two and three. Defense counsel invited this Court to review the contents of Envelopes One (Government’s unredacted brief) and Four...

The Texas Attorney General's Office released a statement on December 29 that it had on that day "asked the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold a federal appeals court ruling to halt the president's unconstitutional executive action on immigration." On November 9, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans upheld a lower court's injunction blocking the Obama administration's actions to shield millions of illegal aliens from deportation. The injunction had originally been granted on February 16 by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of...