Back in February, we told you that U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen's sided with 26 states when he placed a hold on the President's unilateral diktats extending amnesty to illegal aliens. At the time, Dan wrote that the decision would, obviously, not be the end of the issue. We fully expected that the Obama administration would try to get the hold lifted at the earliest possible moment.
Obama's duel edicts were set to go into effect on February 18th and May 19th. After the Judge's ruling, the administration claimed that the temporary hold damaged "the interests of the public and of third parties who will be deprived of significant law enforcement and humanitarian benefits of prompt implementation." The delay, they claimed, was unacceptable.
Unfortunately for the President, his DOJ lawyers have failed to explain why that's the case.
A federal judge in Texas late Tuesday kept a temporary hold on President Barack Obama's executive action that sought to shield millions of immigrants from deportation, rejecting a U.S. Department of Justice request that he allow the action to go ahead.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville refused to lift the preliminary injunction he granted on Feb. 16 at the request of 26 states that oppose Obama's action.
Hanen's latest ruling confirms the status quo — that the Obama administration is temporarily barred from implementing the policies that would allow as many as 5 million people in the U.S. illegally to remain.
The Justice Department had already appealed to a higher court, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, to lift Hanen's injunction. The appeals court was scheduled to hear arguments on whether the injunction should be lifted on April 17.
In his order Tuesday denying the government's request, Hanen said the government hasn't "shown any credible reason for why this Directive necessitates immediate implementation."
And the President's legal woes don't stop there. The administration's legal team has about three weeks until they're forced to turn over all documentation pertaining to what Hanen believes is "misleading" beahvior.
Hanen issued his initial injunction believing that neither of those orders had taken effect. About a month later, the Justice Department confirmed that more than 108,000 people had already received three-year reprieves from deportation and work permits, but DOJ attorneys insisted the moves were made under 2012 guidelines that weren't blocked by the injunction. The DOJ apologized for any confusion, but Hanen seemed unconvinced during a hearing last month and threatened to sanction the attorneys.
He wrote Tuesday that while the federal government had been "misleading" on the subject, he would not immediately apply sanctions against the government, saying to do so would not be "in the interests of justice or in the best interest of this country" because the issue was of national importance and the outcome will affect millions of people.
In a separate order Hanen, told the government it has until April 21 to file to the court and plaintiffs detailed information about its March advisory about the 108,000 three-year reprieves.
As mentioned above, the administration has already filed a separate appeal which will be heard by the 5th Circuit Court in a little over a week. Most watchers suspect they're going to have an unpleasant time explaining the shady moves they've already made.
If the appellate court keeps the injunction in place, the question becomes: Does Obama feel like letting himself be restrained by the law, or will he simply ignore it while he applies his usual delay tactics? If his attitude toward the separation of powers is any indication, you can expect him to find a sneaky way to bypass the decision and implement his plans anyway.
Considering that no one in Congress has ever done anything to stop him, why wouldn't he?
