Musings on Immigration

Its a sad day for immigrants who simply want a chance. DAPA falls,  Obama fails, and politics live. http://www.nytimes.com/…/fifth-circuit-court-of-appeals-rul… 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...

There is that old story of a person stopping in a small town to ask directions outside an old general store.  An old man on the porch of that store, when asked how to get to the destination, says "you can't get there from here."   It seems that the District Court in Texas is having the same problem understanding the DHS's policy memos on DAPA and expanded DACA, as the old man on the porch had with understanding the road system. Immigration law is complicated.  So complicated that at least one federal court judge has said:  The statutory scheme defining and delimiting the rights of aliens is exceedingly complex. Courts and commentators have stated that the Immigration and Nationality Act resembles ‘King Mino’s labyrinth in ancient Crete,’ and is ‘second only to the Internal Revenue Code in complexity.'” Chan v. Reno, 1997 U.S. Dist. Lexis 3016, *5 (S.D.N.Y. 1997).   The District Court Judge in the DAPA case was never an immigration lawyer prior to becomin...