ImmigrationObama’s immigration action defeat: Supreme Court declines to re-hear case
The Supreme Court handed to Obama administration a major defeat, saying the court will not reconsider President Barack Obama’s plan to protect undocumented immigrants from deportation. Back in June, the court deadlocked over whether or not to revive the Obama administration’s plan to protect about four million undocumented immigrants from deportation and allowing them to work legally while they pursue a path to legalization in the United States.
The Supreme Court handed to Obama administration a major defeat, saying the court will not reconsider President Barack Obama’s plan to protect undocumented immigrants from deportation.
The first Monday in October marks the beginning of the new Supreme Court term, and the Wall Street Journal reports that this first day of the term was a day of rejection, with the court issuing a long list of cases that had accumulated over the summer and which the justices had decided not to hear.
Among the cases which will not be heard is the request by the Washington Redskins’ to get its trademark case on this term’s docket, and the bid by the NCAA to review an appeals court ruling about the NCAA’s policies regarding the amateur status of college football and basketball players.
Back in June, the court deadlocked over whether or not to revive the Obama administration’s plan to protect about four million undocumented immigrants from deportation and allowing them to work legally while they pursue a path to legalization in the United States.
The deadlock – in all likelihood, a tie between the court’s liberal and conservative judges – left standing a lower court’s decision that the Obama administration probably exceeded its powers in issuing the executive action.
Obama’s executive order would have deferred the deportation of undocumented immigrants who have been in the country since 2010, have not committed any serious crimes, and have family ties to U.S. citizens or others lawfully in the country.
The Journal notes that the Supreme Court rarely grants motions for rehearing, but the administration’s lawyers requested a rehearing in the hope that, by now, the vacancy left by Antonin Scalia’s death would be filled by a judge more receptive to the administration’s arguments.
Senate Republicans, however, have refused to consider the nomination of appeals court judge Merrick Garland, so the president’s immigration program must now wait the result of the 8 November elections.
