Supreme Court to Rule on Obama’s Bid to Block Deportations Sets the stage for a blockbuster ruling on presidential powers in key immigration case By Jess Bravin and Byron Tau
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-supreme-court-to-rule-on-obamas-immigration-plan-1453214589
WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court took up the divisive political issue of immigration on Tuesday, agreeing to rule by June on the Obama administration’s stalled plan to defer deportation of more than four million illegal immigrants.
The court’s move sets the stage for a blockbuster ruling on presidential powers just as the major parties settle on their 2016 nominees. As if the stakes weren’t high enough already, the justices added a provocative question to the case, asking the parties to address whether President Barack Obama violated his constitutional duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
The immigration case joins a docket loaded with politically charged issues that underscore the court’s relevance to the presidential campaign: Abortion rights, affirmative action, contraceptive coverage and public-employee union powers all are before the court.
The immigration dispute stems from Mr. Obama’s second-term embrace of executive action to shift policy, in the face of a Republican-controlled Congress that has stymied his legislative initiatives. From the campaign trail to Capitol Hill, Republicans have stated nearly universal opposition to Mr. Obama’s agenda on energy, guns and foreign relations, and criticized his use of executive authority.
The president has made no apologies. With Congress deadlocked over an immigration overhaul, Mr. Obama in November 2014 cited his authority to give a temporary reprieve to illegal immigrants whose children hold U.S. citizenship or permanent residency. The plan sought to prioritize the removal of serious criminals while allowing parents of these children to work without fear of deportation.
The administration, which asked the justices to take up the case, see a high court victory as the only plausible means to implement the program before leaving office.
“By consulting recent presidential history, we feel confident that there is a strong precedent that exists for this executive action,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
In legal papers, the administration not only claims the power to set immigrant enforcement priorities, it argues it had no choice. “More than 11 million removable aliens are estimated to live in the United States. But Congress has appropriated the funds to remove only a fraction of that population in any given year,” the administration said in its Supreme Court petition.
The administration’s arguments rely heavily on Supreme Court precedents assigning the federal government primacy over border control, particularly a 2012 opinion invalidating an Arizona law making it a crime for illegal immigrants to solicit work.
Texas, along with 25 other mostly Republican-led states, filed suit to invalidate the program, and so far has prevailed in the courts.
“There are limits to the president’s authority, and those limits enacted by Congress were exceeded when the president unilaterally sought to grant ‘lawful presence’ to more than four million unauthorized aliens who are in this country unlawfully,” said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Texas has acknowledged that federal authorities hold discretion over deportation decisions, but the state argues that power should be exercised on a case-by-case basis. By issuing a blanket policy benefiting a vast class of illegal immigrants, Texas contends the president has stepped beyond enforcement into lawmaking, and harmed it in the process.
Lower courts have agreed, finding that the policy cannot move forward without a step the Obama administration skipped: the lengthy rule-making process set out in the Administrative Procedure Act, a 1946 law that governs most regulatory agency action.
In February 2015, a federal district judge in Brownsville, Texas, halted the program, a decision upheld by the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Courts have yet to hold full trial proceedings on the matter.
Fifteen Democratic-leaning states and the District of Columbia, along with leaders of major cities including Houston, Los Angeles and New York, filed briefs backing the administration.
In addition to arguing the policy isn’t subject to standard rule-making procedure, the administration challenged Texas’ legal standing to bring the case. The state has said the deportation reprieve would force it to issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants currently ineligible for the privilege, costing the state money because license fees don’t cover the cost of issuing licenses.
The administration said Texas had no obligation to subsidize the cost of driver’s licenses.
The court’s additional question on whether the policy violates the Take Care Clause, announced without explanation, as is the customary practice, added a dose of mystery.
“This is quite the bombshell if the court is really going to do something with it,” University of Texas law professor Sanford Levinson said. The question hints that at least some conservative justices have concerns about the legality of the Obama administration’s moves. “It can’t be the liberals who want this briefed and argued,” he added, referring to the court’s four liberal members.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.), who plans to file a brief backing the administration’s position, said he was still pondering how to address the “take care” question. “It’s a curveball, and we’ll just have to deal with it,” he said.
Conservative proponents of a strong presidency “have been championing the Take Care Clause as a broad independent source of presidential power,” said Mark Graber, a law professor at the University of Maryland, who speculated that “the court might want to develop a broad theory of independent presidential power, while explaining why Obama’s action falls outside of that power.”
An early summer ruling would put it at the start of a long general election season. Traditionally, both parties have held nominating conventions in late August or early September, kicking off a fall general election campaign. This year, the parties host their conventions much earlier.
Even if the court affirms Mr. Obama’s immigration actions by early summer, the administration will have only several months to roll out the program before his successor is chosen and sworn in.
Reaction among presidential candidates was sharply partisan.
“The president has been asked to show the court whether he fulfilled his [constitutional] duty to ‘Take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.’ He did not do that, and I trust that the court will reach that conclusion,” said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican contender, in a statement. If not, he pledged to “undo all of Obama’s illegal and unconstitutional executive actions, including amnesty.”
Democrats took the opposite view, with front-runner Hillary Clinton backing the administration and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont saying, “as president I would uphold and expand the president’s action.”
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