Posted on 06/22/2016 2:17:04 PM PDT by Elderberry
The high court will determine if Obama's DAPA -- Deferred Action for Parents of Americans -- is Constitutional.
AUSTIN, TX -- The U.S. Supreme Court this week could rule on a far-reaching immigration-related case that would allow the parents of immigrant children to stay in the country legally.
United States v. Texas, the pending U.S. Supreme Court case hinges on the constitutionality of an Obama administration initiative -- Deferred Action for Parents of Americans -- known by its acronym DAPA. The program was unveiled by Obama in November 2014 as an executive action, in a move to grant deferred action to undocumented immigrants who are parents of U.S.-born children.
DAPA would’ve allowed immigrant parents legal status and protection to apply for sanctioned work permits. With about 1.68 million undocumented immigrants in Texas -- some 11 million nationally -- the case has broad implications.
Divisive Texas Cases Loom Large in Supreme Court Decisions
But conservatives in the GOP-led state government filed suit to prevent DAPA’s passage, leading a 26-state coalition to stop its implementation. By February, DAPA opponents scored their first victory: The granting of a preliminary injunction that effectively halted its passage. The favorable ruling for GOP opponents was granted by U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen, a Republican appointee with a history of anti-immigration rulings.
A week after the ruling, on Feb. 23, the U.S. government asked the court to lift the injunction as it filed an appeal to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Hanen denied the request. In the New Orleans appeals court, the Obama administration’s motion for a stay was denied.
A request to allow DAPA to implemented at the other states except Texas while the case was being appealed also was denied. Ultimately, the proposed executive action was found to run counter to the Administrative Procedure Act and Immigration and Nationality Act -- both antithetical to DAPA passage, appeals judges wrote in their opinion.
In November 2015, the U.S. Justice Department announced it would ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse that decision. As the case meandered its way to the nation’s highest court, several dynamics have changed that could potentially inform a ruling.
Foremost: The death of conservative justice Antonin Scalia, which means the case will be in the hands of eight jurists that could lead to a divided court. In such as case, the ruling of the Fifth Circuit would be affirmed.
Up until Texas opposition, the specter of DAPA had buoyed the hopes of millions of immigrants -- many of whom living in the shadows of society. In the state’s capital, immigration advocates regularly stage rallies in support of immigration reform, including one coinciding with St. Valentine’s Day during which immigrants delivered to the governor’s mansion gates an oversize simulation to of a greeting card but representing a broken heart.
Virginia Segura and her husband had looked forward to applying for DAPA until Texas stepped in. Now, her future -- and that of her family -- hangs in the balance. "We have a 4-year-old son, and he needs to be with me and his father always," she said at the February rally. "My son was born in this country. He has a right to be with his parents.”
Maybe some good news?
This one is huge.
I doubt it. Scalia was ‘taken out’ for a reason. No autopsy? Yeah.. Okay.
My concerns with their recent pattern of decisions:
1. They vote it unconstitutional, Obama does it anyway. Who needs to worry about how tyranny could be done within the consitutional framework when someone at the top can say we’re doing it our way anyway.
2. They’ve seemed to have rulings where swing voters compromised, I’ll vote this way on this case to mollify liberals if you vote that way so we mollify conservatives. That means the court is totally political, not ruling based on the merits of the law in most cases. And that means their rulings cannot be said to be the final basis on it, since the vote may have differed on another day.
Prayers up you all!!!
The very title of this illegal piece of garbage is a lie. They are not Americans if both of their parents fell under the jurisdiction of another government.
Yes!
Article written by one Antonio Cantu.
A common Mexican name. Went to school with a Cantu, nice guy.
If you think there’s an agenda here...you’re right.
If it goes the right way, because they have registered we will have all the information needed to fast track these deportations.
“My son was born in this country. He has a right to be with his parents.”
_______________
They have every right to take their son with them back to THEIR country of origin. The little tyke can come on back when he reaches 21.
The very title of this illegal piece of garbage is a lie. They are not Americans if both of their parents fell under the jurisdiction of another government.
Exactly, anchor babies are not American citizens because they were not born here legally. See the legislative history of the 14th Amendment and the Wong Ark case, which makes it clear that birthright citizenship only applies to those whose parents were lawfully in the country at the time of birth.
Dear Virginia,
Absolutely NO ONE is stopping your son from being with his parents. You are free to take him to your country of legal residence when you leave.
Do have a nice day.
So she and her husband comes here illegally, sire an offspring, and lament that he can't be with his father because he's a criminal. Does that about sum it up?
If he wants to be with his father, go back to his native country and stay with him. It's as simple as that. I got no sympathy for criminals who break the law but demand that they be legally able to keep doing so.
That's how twisted this country has become.
Yup.
Here’s what’s gonna happen:
The four main issues in the case are:
1. Does Texas have standing to sue?
2. Is the case “justiciable,” meaning, has Congress granted the Homeland Security the discretion to do what it did? (If so, the case is not reviewable).
3. Did Homeland Security exceed it’s authority, or violate the statutory Notice and Comment Rule, when it implemented the DAPA program?
4. Is the DAPA program a violation of the “Take Care” Clause of the Constitution?
Most likely, the Court will split evenly 4-4 all down the line on all four issues. That means the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals decision remains the law. No nationally binding precedent is created. Since the case is before the court on an appeal from a preliminary injunction, the case goes back to Judge Hanen for a trial on the merits, but with sufficient direction from the 5th Circuit opinion that stacks the deck against the government in the trial.
Except for one wild card: Much of Judge Hanen’s original decision to grant the preliminary injunction and bar the government from proceeding with the DAPA program while the case was in litigation was based on the factual findings from the DACA program, which is slightly older but similar to DAPA. DAPA is intended by the government to be an exercise of prosecutorial discretion, which is not reviewable by the courts. DACA purports to be the same thing, but the evidence was that the DACA program never exercised that discretion. Everyone who applied and met minimum qualifications was approved. That was the basis of Judge Hanen’s ruling that Texas was likely to prevail on the merits, because there was no evidence of actual prosecutorial discretion.
Judge Hanen’s most recent fights with the U. S. Attorneys office is that they lied about upholding his order barring them from implementing the DAPA program. The purpose of implementing the program in disregard of the Court order was not humanitarian, it was evidentiary. I can guarantee that in allowing about 100,000 people to participate after the Court told them not to, Homeland Security randomly DENIED several applications, therefore creating evidence that prosecutorial discretion was at work, and salvaging their case at trial. That’s the real story behind the ethics case still pending. The question will be whether Judge Hanen allows the government to present evidence they created in direct violation of a court order.
Now, under this scenario, the case goes to trial and then goes back up on appeal to the SCOTUS, where 9 judges decide, the decisive 9th vote being a Clinton appointee. Or, the case is moot and never sees a trial because President Trump rescinds the DAPA program by executive order, and the case is dismissed but Texas, and all of America wins because Trump kills a program that should never have been created.
The other less likely scenario is that you will get a 4-1-3 opinion. Four justices say there was standing, four say no. The 5th Circuit opinion stands on that issue. However, the Justiciability issue is more troubling, and I could see Kennedy switching on that issue and concurring with the other four liberal justices. In that event, five justices say “no case” and the case is dead, permanently, on the spot. It goes back to Judge Hanen with orders to dismiss Texas’ suit, and the DAPA program continues until Trump rescinds it. The Constitutionality of the other issues is not reached.
the law is “custody follows the parents, not the child”
The child goes back with the illegal alien parents.
the adult citizen may return.
ALSO unless the adult has been in the USA for eight years, their offspring are not automatically citizens.
Wong Kim Ark does not stand for the proposition that the parents must be legally in the country. Neither does it stand for the proposition that children born here of parents who are present illegally are granted citizenship.
It is in fact silent on the issue. There is plenty of language in the opinion that could be twisted both ways. It’s my opinion though, that had Wong Kim Ark addressed the issue of birthright citizenship where the parents are in the country illegally, the Court would have found no citizenship. But that issue was not before them that day.
Like there’s any drama to this. They will vote as instructed.
This DAPA is why there are son many unaccompanied ‘children’ storming our borders. If they get to stay, then mom, dad, granny and grandpa and every cousin can come .......................
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.