Government lawyers on Monday made good on
their promise to ask a federal judge to lift his nationwide hold on President Obama's immigration actions, which would provide deportation relief for up to five million immigrants,
reports Juan Lozano.
The first of Obama's orders — to expand a program that protects young immigrants from deportation if they were brought to the U.S. illegally as children — had been set to start taking effect Feb. 18. The other major part of Obama's order, which extends deportation protections to parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents who have been in the country for some years, was not expected to begin until May 19.
Judge Andrew Hanen issued a preliminary injunction last week putting Obama's actions on hold as he reviewed a Republican-led effort from 26 states seeking to halt the immigration initiatives entirely. But Department of Justice lawyers said the initiative should be allowed to proceed in the other 25 states outside of Texas, since Hanen only found that the state of Texas had the right to sue. Here's details
from Josh Gerstein:
In the motion filed Monday (and posted here), Justice Department lawyers also asked the judge to narrow his nationwide injunction to only apply in the State of Texas, which was the lead plaintiff in the case. At a minimum, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson should be allowed to proceed with the program in other states, the motion argued.
Court observers say that Hanen is unlikely to negate his own ruling, but government lawyers plan to take their request to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday night whether Hanen rules or not.
The stay request is separate from an appeal the federal government is expected to file with the 5th Circuit over Hanen's ruling. That appeal, once filed, would likely take anywhere from four to nine months to be ruled upon, Gulasekaram said.
A little over an hour after government lawyers filed their motion, the State of Texas filed a letter opposing the DOJ's request,
notes Josh Blackman. The letter read in part:
The Plaintiff States write to oppose Defendants' request for expedited consideration of their motion filed today to stay the Court’s preliminary injunction pending appeal… if Defendants had any compelling claim of a looming, irreversible harm from temporary injunctive relief, they would have featured it previously. They had ample time to do so: Plaintiffs requested a preliminary injunction on December 4, some six weeks before this Court’s January 15 motion hearing.