AP
By Kevin McGill
July 10, 2015
Noise
from hundreds of chanting immigration activists outside a federal
appeals court building competed at times Friday with lawyers arguing
inside over President Barack
Obama’s proposal to shield an estimated 5 million people from
deportation who are in the U.S. illegally.
“The
three judges felt the vibrancy and power of our movement,” said
Marielena Hincapie, of the National Immigration Law Center, speaking to
the crowd that rallied while
a panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard the case.
Demonstrators
gathered on the steps of the federal courthouse with permission from
authorities, their chanting mixed with speeches in English and Spanish
and music from
a brass band. Activists criticized Republican resistance to the Obama
program and called for policies that let immigrants stay and work in the
country.
The
crowd spilled into a blocked-off street and a nearby park. Organizers
said there would be acts of “civil disobedience.” Police were seen
escorting some away from an
intersection near the court building. Police spokesman Frank Robertson
said 14 people were issued summonses for obstructing public passages.
Inside
the courthouse, the judges heard the latest versions of now-familiar
arguments, with an attorney for the state of Texas arguing that Obama’s
program amounted to
executive overreach, and an Obama administration attorney saying the
executive branch was within its rights in deciding to defer deportation
of selected groups of immigrants.
Obama
announced the plan in November. Republicans in Congress were highly
critical and a federal judge in Texas, siding with Texas and 25 other
states, issued an injunction,
which the Obama administration appealed.
It
was unclear when the appeals court would rule. A ruling against the
administration would further dim prospects of implementation of the
executive action before Obama
leaves office in 2016. Appeals would take months and, depending on how
the case unfolds, it could go back to the Texas federal court for more
proceedings.
Obama’s
executive orders were intended to expand a program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which protects young immigrants from
deportation if they were
brought to the U.S. illegally as children. The other major part,
Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, would extend deportation
protections to parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents who have
been in the country for some years.
“All
that deferred action confers on an alien is the right to remain here,”
said Benjamin Mizer, an assistant attorney general arguing for the
administration. “It is temporary
and revocable.”
Scott
Keller, representing the Texas Solicitor General’s Office, argued that
the administration was doing more than simply deferring action. He said
the plan would effectively
grant a new legal status — legal presence — to people in the country
illegally, putting them in line to get permission to work and benefit
from Social Security.
Judge
Carolyn Dineen King seemed skeptical of that argument at times, noting
that deferred action wouldn’t change the fact that someone entered the
country illegally and
would not protect them from deportation under any circumstance. “Based
on the unlawful thing that they did to begin with, you can turn them out
tomorrow,” she said.
Arguments
also settled on whether Texas and the states even have the power to
challenge the federal executive branch’s authority to regulate
immigration. Arguments on
that issue largely have centered on the costs Texas would incur by
having to issue driver licenses to DAPA beneficiaries — an injury, the
state argued — that gave them the right to sue.
Two
of the judges on Friday’s panel, Jerry Smith and Jennifer Walker Elrod,
were in the majority on a panel that voted 2-1 in May against allowing
the deferred action programs to continue pending the appeal outcome. In that opinion, they
disagreed with government contentions that Texas had no standing. They
also ruled that the Obama action was subject to judicial review under
the federal Administrative Procedures Act, which
the Justice Department disputes.
Obama’s
own statements came into play inside and outside the courtroom. Elrod
noted at one point that Obama had once said he would “have to change the
law” to implement
reforms. Texas’ attorney general’s office, in a post-hearing news
release, noted a statement Obama made last year that he had taken
“action to change the law.”
It was unclear Friday whether either Smith or Elrod was swayed by any of Friday’s arguments.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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