Amnesty supporters reacted with self-righteous sneers, anger and frustration to the late Monday night decision by a federal judge to block Barack Obama’s unilateral amnesty.
“Judge [Andrew] Hanen’s decision is an example of judicial vigilantism… we are confident Judge Hanen’s regressive, polemical decision will be humiliated by history’s march toward progress,” said a statement from the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.
“The decision is not permanent… We are confident that the higher courts will reject this lawsuit since it has no legal merit and only wastes taxpayer dollars & attack immigrant youth, workers & families,” said another statement by a union-backed group of younger illegals, dubbed United We Dream.
The verdict may be reversed by higher courts, but for now, it marks a second major defeat for Obama’s multi-year effort to increase immigration. In 2014, Republican voters pressured GOP leaders to block the Obama-backed amnesty bill that was passed through the Senate in 2013, despite huge pressure from GOP donors, business groups, progressives, the establishment media and progressive foundations.
Amnesty advocates dismissed the many polls that show that Obama’s immigration push is unpopular, and ignore the huge impact on Americans of the government-created flood of foreign labor into the U.S. labor market.
“Undocumented immigrants show Americans what it is to be Americans — we fight for a country that excludes and ignores us,” said Jose Antonio Vargas, a Filipino gay advocate.
Frank Sharry, a progressive advocate for greater immigration, predicted the decision would cause GOP infighting over whether to keep a ban on amnesty funding in the pending 2015 budget for the Department of Homeland Security. “GOP abt 2 explode in civil war,” he said in a late-night tweet. GOP “Ldrshp will declare victory, try 2 fund DHS. Hell No right wants shutdown fight. Who wins? Bet on far right.”
Currently, the GOP-drafted DHS budget bill is being filibustered by all 46 Democratic senators. They oppose defunding the amnesty. The Democratic senators support Obama’s amnesty, even though the extra foreign workers would increase job competition facing unemployed and young Americans.
In November 2014, one in every five U.S. jobs was held by a foreign-born worker, up from one-in-six jobs in January 2010, according to federal data highlighted by the Center for Immigration Studies.
Each year, four million young Americans begin competing for jobs against at least 10 million unemployed Americans, against two million annual new immigrants and against a resident pool of roughly two million guest workers.
“In sum: a GOP judge granted GOP officials’ motion to delay a program precipitated by the inaction of the GOP-controlled House,” said Ben Winograd, an private-sector immigration lawyer at the Immigrant & Refugee Appellate Center.
The decision “is nothing more than judicial activism by an extremist judge,” claimed Marshall Fitz, the vice president of immigration Policy at the Center for American Progress.
The ACLU complained the judge’s decision was “extreme and inflammatory.”
The late-night, 123-page injunction, however, was cautiously written to survive review by appeals court judges.
The decision does not declare that Obama’s project is unconstitutional. Instead, the judge says that Obama’s effort to award work-permits, Social Security numbers, tax rebates and a quick path to citizenship to at least four million illegals violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which describes how government must draft, publish, debate and finalize regulations.
The judge may reach further when he later releases his full decision on Obama’s amnesty. That decision may argue that Obama’s unilateral amnesty is unconstitutional.
But for now, if Obama wants to lift the injunction that is stopping his amnesty, his lawyers must persuade the appeals court judges that he is not violating the federal regulatory procedure law.
The judge’s language, however, suggests he is confident that his argument will survive the appeals.
The Department of Homeland Security “does have discretion in the manner in which it chooses to fulfill the expressed will of Congress,” said the decision.
“It cannot, however, enact a program in which it not only ignores the dictates of Congress, but actively acts to thwart them… [Obama] is not just rewriting the laws he is creating them from scratch.”
Obama describes his policy as “deferred action,” implying that repatriations may restart later. But, according to the judge, “deferred action is not a status created or authorized by law or by Congress, nor has tis properties been described in any legislative act.”
“The award of legal status and all that it entails is an impermissible refusal to follow the law.”
The amnesty “does not represent mere inadequacy; it is complete abdication. … It is, in effect, a new law,” the judge wrote.
The administration “is not just rewriting the laws; he is creating them from scratch.”
The administration “cannot enact a program whereby it not only ignores the dictates of Congress, but actively acts to thwart them.”
Hanen’s decision was welcomed by House Speaker John Boehner.
“The president said 22 times he did not have the authority to take the very action on immigration he eventually did, so it is no surprise that at least one court has agreed,” Boehner said. “We will continue to follow the case as it moves through the legal process. Hopefully, Senate Democrats who claim to oppose this executive overreach will now let the Senate begin debate on a bill to fund the Homeland Security department.”
White House officials defended the president’s amnesty and vowed to appeal.
“The Supreme Court and Congress have made clear that the federal government can set priorities in enforcing our immigration laws—which is exactly what the President did when he announced commonsense policies to help fix our broken immigration system,” they said in a Tuesday statement.
“The Department of Justice, legal scholars, immigration experts, and the district court in Washington, D.C. have determined that the President’s actions are well within his legal authority. Top law enforcement officials, along with state and local leaders across the country, have emphasized that these policies will also benefit the economy and help keep communities safe,” the statement continued.
“The district court’s decision wrongly prevents these lawful, commonsense policies from taking effect and the Department of Justice has indicated that it will appeal that decision.”