The Obama administration on Monday filed both an appeal and a request for an immediate stay of last week’s court ruling halting the president’s deportation amnesty, arguing that if it can’t grant illegal immigrants work permits and Social Security numbers it cannot enforce other laws properly.
Both moves were expected after the Feb. 16 ruling by Judge Andrew S. Hanen, which stopped the amnesty just two days before the first applications were expected to be filed.
In court papers Monday, Justice Department and Homeland Security officials insisted that illegal immigrants will be denied benefits if they cannot immediately apply for the deportation amnesty, which grants a three-year tentative lawful status, work permits, Social Security numbers, travel rights and the right to a driver’s license to as many as 4 million illegal immigrants.
“The balance of hardships tips decidedly in favor of a stay,” Joyce R. Branda, acting assistant attorney general, said in the filing.
The appeal will go to the circuit appeals court that sits in New Orleans, while Ms. Branda asked Judge Hanen to issue a stay of his own injunction.
In one striking request the government said at the very least the amnesty should go into effect for a dozen states that filed court papers saying they believed the program would benefit them. It marks a stunning reversal for the administration, which for years has argued against treating some states differently in immigration, saying there needs to be uniformity across the country for immigration policy to make sense.
“In the view of the federal government, the question that we’re asking is, if you won’t grant a stay for the full injunction, then you should just grant a stay so that we can move forward with these executive actions in other states,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in announcing the moves.
Judge Hanen ruled that Mr. Obama has complete discretion to decide whom to deport, but ruled he went beyond his powers when he created a new program to grant proactive benefits to them. The judge said at the very least the president broke the law by not going through the usual public comment period for major policy changes.
Under the president’s program, illegal immigrants who are approved would be given cards signifying they had temporary lawful status. Homeland Security officials told the court those cards mean that immigration agents who encounter the illegal immigrants don’t have to bother processing them, and can quickly release them, which allows the agents to go back to work focusing on higher-priority illegal immigrants.
“If law enforcement organizations do not ensure that their limited resources are directed to their highest priorities, overall public safety might be compromised,” Customs and Border Protection Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske said in an affidavit.
Sara R. Saldana, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which handles interior immigration enforcement, told the court that the failure to secure the border during last year’s surge of illegal immigrants from Central America meant she had to shift agents to the southwest, meaning she has fewer people to enforce laws in the interior. She said with her agency stretched, not having to worry about most illegal immigrants would be a boon.
But the 26 states who sued to stop the amnesty, led by Texas, told Judge Hanen there’s no rush to lift his injunction, saying that Mr. Obama’s lawyers waited a full week before filing their request, which shows a lack or urgency.
“Indeed, if defendants had any compelling claim from a looming, irreversible harm from temporary injunctive relief, they would have featured it previously,” Texas Assistant Attorney General Angela V. Colmenero wrote in a memo to Judge Hanen.
She also pointed to Judge Hanen’s own ruling that if the amnesty takes effect, “there will be no effective way of putting the toothpaste back in the tube.”
• Dave Boyer contributed to this article.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.