Skip to main content

DAPA and The 5th Circuit--Three Reasons Why Obama Failed to Win Approval of the Policy Change

Its a sad day for immigrants who simply want a chance. DAPA falls,  Obama fails, and politics live.
A federal appeals court on Tuesday denied the Obama administration’s request to lift a hold on the president’s executive actions on immigration, which would have granted protection from deportation as well as work permits to millions of immigrants in the country illegally.
Two of three judges on a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, left in place an injunction by a federal district judge in Brownsville, Tex. The ruling comes in a lawsuit by 26 states against actions President Obama took in November. Many of the initiatives were scheduled to take effect this month.The appeals court found that Texas and the other states did have sufficient legal grounds to bring the lawsuit and that the administration had not shown it would be harmed if the injunction remained in the place and the programs were further delayed.
You can read the decision and the dissent here.  
Why did this happen?  Many people will tell you that it is because the lawyers for Texas did a great job in finding the right District Court Judge (Hanen), and then lucked into a majority GOP 5th Circuit Panel to win a 2-1 decision.  That is true.  What most folks will not tell you is why we here in the first place.
What was Texas actually complaining about?  That DAPA was going to cause them to issue driver's licenses that would cost the state money.  A farce, but a farce that played well enough to three judges. And, that Obama did not publish what it argued was a "rule" or "regulation" in the Federal Register (Obama argued it was a "policy" change and thus did not need to get published in the Federal Register).  That's it.  Okay, the state's also argued about unconstitutional blather, but that was never decided and frankly, they lose on that issue.
So, WHY did Obama's DAPA policy fail.  Its rather simple. First, Obama did not publish his DAPA policy in the Federal Register.  Some very smart people pointed out to Obama shortly after Judge Hanen's decision that all he had to do to address the Judge's complaint was to publish notice, under the Administrative Procedures Act, claim emergent circumstances (which he could justify), and the program could have taken effect by May.  Of course, Obama did not do this.  Perhaps on the advise of his lawyers he chose to fight rather than just completing the administrative step of publication.  Or, perhaps he wanted the program to be held up for political gain.  
Second, Obama also lost because he did not have the right attorneys on this case.   Obama's lawyers were NOT immigration lawyers from the DOJ, but rather attorneys from the Office of Civil Rights who were NOT experts on immigration law.  This was obvious when they did not understand how USCIS works, how it issues work permits for three years to those who should not have gotten them, and how they failed to follow up timely with Judge Hanen on clarifying his order about the ENTIRE Policy Memo Stay issued by the Judge.   It this case, I am going to blame the lawyers.
Finally, Obama underestimated the hatred of him and his policies by those opposed to him and to a sensible Immigration policy change.  People like the Governor of Texas do not care about national elections.  He does not care that the GOP will now certainly lose the presidential election in 2016.  They do not care that the next democratic president will likely nominate three more Supreme Court justices (possibly four) and that the GOP will lose the next generation of important cases and political arguments.  People like the Governor of Texas only care about themselves and the now, not about the big picture of national politics and the future.   Because Obama does not get this, he did not see this litigation coming, and he did not plan accordingly.
DAPA is not dead, but it does sleep.  The next move is in Obama's court.  Let's see whether he not only talks the talk, but walks the walk.  He can publish in the Federal Register tomorrow and start the clock running on a DAPA effective date, or he can continue fighting what is a losing battle in Texas. Sometimes, it best to know when to switch strategies.  That time is now.  

Comments

  1. Yes it is a sad day for the people and my husband that is in great need for this bill to pass.. I wish that I could fix my husband's papers but I just don't have the money to do so, since my husband is not able to work due that he does not have legal papers to work so that makes me the only one to take care of the household by myself it's hard and stressful aswell heartbreaking to see my family suffer because of selfish people who don't think how they are hurting others like my family.I just hope and pray that this bill gets aproved sooner then later for the sake of the people and my husband..... But I will keep my faith that our Father in Heaven will do something about this and open doors for the ones in great need... Hilary Guevara

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

If You Are An Immigrant (even a US Citizen), Here Are 9 Things You Should Know

Are you a Naturalized U.S. Citizen, Lawful Permanent Resident, Visa Holder, or an Undocumented Immigrant? We recommend you take the following steps to protect yourself in our current version of America. The last couple of weeks have reminded immigrants, even naturalized U.S. citizens, that they were not born in the United States. Our office has received countless phone calls, emails, and social media messages from people worrying about what their family’s future in the United States holds. Most people want to know what they can do now to protect themselves from what promises to be a wave of anti-immigration activity by the federal government. Trump's Executive Order on Interior Enforcement has some provisions that should make most Americans shiver.  We recommend the following actions for each of the following groups: Naturalized U.S. citizens. In particular if you have a foreign accent, and you are traveling within 100 miles of any US Border (including the oceans

Seven Reasons Why the Georgia Legislature Should Repeal HB-87

Recently the Alabama Attorney General called on the Alabama State Legislature to repeal parts of Alabama's horrid anti-immigration law ( HB 56), because of the "unintended" consequences of the bill (frankly, what happened was not unintended). Because of the similarity between the two laws, Georgia's Speaker of the House, David Ralston was asked whether Georgia Legislature would repeal part or all of HB 87, Georgia own anti-immigration law. HB 87 has caused almost a half a billion dollars in damage to the Georgia economy (along with untold suffering in Georgia's immigrant communities) without any noted or reported positive effect. Speaker Ralston plainly stated that the Georgia Legislature would NOT do anything to repeal HB 87 . While it understandable why a politician would not admit that a pet bill he shepherded and pushed through the state legislature was simply bad law, it is also clear that Speaker Ralston is facing a challenge on his RIGHT in th

How To Stop Illegal Immigration

In the midst of the never ending political season, we hear much rhetoric about immigration, and what candidates will "do" to fix what everyone considers to be a broken (not failed, just broken) immigration system.  Most of the candidates, however, put a condition on fixing this broken system by saying that:  "FIRST, we must secure the border and end illegal immigration, then we will talk."   What will it take to accomplish this precondition to solve a the acknowledged problem. There are two types of "illegal" immigration to the United States.  The first is what everyone already considers to be illegal immigration--those who enter the United States without a visa through our thousands of miles of borders.  Proposals to fix this particular type of illegal immigration range from alligators and moats, to automatic firing machine guns, to “beautiful” walls, to limitless numbers of border patrol agents.  The second type of "illegal" immigratio