More than 100,000 three-year deportation amnesties issued by Homeland Security should be rescinded and reissued as two-year permits, Texas and 25 other states suing the government told a federal judge Friday, as both sides try to clean up the messy situation surrounding President Obama’s immigration executive actions.
At stake are three-year permits issued to so-called Dreamers beginning last November, when Mr. Obama announced he was expanding his 2012 amnesty, including adding an extra year of protection from deportation to Dreamers who were already eligible for the program.
But after Judge Andrew S. Hanen ordered a halt to the expanded amnesty in February, it called into question the 108,081 three-year applications already approved.
Homeland Security says there’s no reason to take action because it had always been clear it was approving the three-year applications from the start. Officials point to the memos issued by Secretary Jeh Johnson saying those who qualified under the 2012 program for Dreamers could get three-year approvals immediately.
Texas, however, says the government misled the court by saying it wasn’t implementing any of the amnesty, and when Judge Hanen halted the program Feb. 16, it should have meant everything gets reset — and those three-year approvals should be reduced to two-year permits.
“In the end, it matters little whether Defendants’ earlier statements in this litigation are labeled miscommunications, misrepresentations, or worse,” Texas said in a court filing Friday. “The fact remains that over 108,000 individuals were issued, and continue to hold, three-year terms of deferred action and work authorization based on the now-enjoined DHS Directive — a program that Defendants expressly stated was not being implemented.”
The case has been messy from the start.
In addition to the 108,000 three-year permits approved between Nov. 20 and Feb. 16, the government admits it approved some 2,612 permits even after Judge Hanen’s Feb. 16 injunction. Homeland Security admits that was a mistake, though it says — and an inspector general’s report confirms — that it was bureaucratic bungling, not an intentional effort to break the judge’s order.
Those 2,600 or so permits have been revoked and the illegal immigrants were required to turn them over or else be kicked out of the amnesty altogether — a fate that befell a handful who refused to comply.
Texas said it doesn’t see a need to go out and collect all 108,000 three-year permits still out there, saying instead that Homeland Security can instead change its computers and notify states that it’s reduced the legal time to two years.
The Obama administration, in its own filing Friday, said rescinding the three-year permits would be punishing illegal immigrant “innocent bystanders” for a miscommunication between the court and the government.
“The bottom-line is that these approximately 108,000 individuals did nothing wrong in this situation, and their interests should not be harmed, or even potentially harmed, because of any miscommunication by the Federal Government,” the administration argued.
Administration lawyers also said if the two-year program from 2012 is legal — and Texas hasn’t challenged it — there’s no reason why a third year would be illegal.
Still, Homeland Security says it’s already converted some of the amnesties to two years, after about 1,000 illegal immigrants voluntarily returned their three-year permits, and others who lost their cards and needed them reissued have also been given only two-year permits.
Judge Hanen has said he felt misled by the government, which only officially alerted him that it was approving three-year permits in early March, which was two weeks after he issued his injunction.
At one point he said the government was taking a “cavalier” approach to its error, and he said he would consider imposing a sanction against the Obama administration for its handling of the case.
But the administration said in its filing that it shouldn’t be punished because of a misunderstanding.
And the lawyers said they proved their good faith by recapturing the 2,600 post-injunction amnesties, and even outright revoking the permits for those who refused to return them on time.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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