The United States Supreme Court heard arguments from Texas’ Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, against President Barack Obama’s 2014 executive action on immigration on April 18, according to Reuters. The programs in question are the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents program (DAPA), which itself extended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA). Both programs protect certain undocumented immigrants from deportation.
Texas’ alleged evidence against the government is weak at best. The state’s own documents refute Texas’ arguments and the justices could dismiss the suit altogether for lack of standing in June, when they’re expected to rule on the case, as a result.
Does Texas Have Legal Standing?
In the case of Texas v. United States, Texas must show that President Obama’s executive actions, “irreparably harmed” Texas for the court to rule that Texas has “standing” to sue the President of the United States over the implementation of his executive actions on immigration. If harm cannot be proven, the Supreme Court must dismiss the case for lack of standing.
Texas’ only argument is that the president’s executive actions on immigration force the state to spend extra money issuing drivers licenses to newly protected immigrants. More specifically, according to Reuters, Texas claims that,
“The added customer base that may be created by the president’s executive action … will substantially burden driver license resources without additional funding and support.”
Texas says DAPA and DACA harm the state by forcing it to spend money it doesn’t have by not only subsidizing driver’s licenses it must issue to those protected from deportation, but by also hiring more people to cover the extra work.
Immigration Action Didn’t Harm Texas…
Paxton claims Texas must hire two full time employees for every 1,750 new licenses issued, or roughly 875 licenses processed per person per year. Budget documents show that each full-time employee Texas hires processes 2,638 licenses annually, which is “triple the efficiency of the state’s claim to the Supreme Court,’ according to Reuters.
According to the Daily Signal, Donald B. Verrilli Jr., the U.S. Solicitor General stated that Texas chose to create the law that forces the state to issue subsidies for licenses, and now it wants to use that law to sue the president. He countered that Texas created its harm, and could undo the harm it created by changing it to stop subsidies going to those who benefit from DAPA and DACA.
The larger question is why did Paxton say the president’s action on immigration harms Texas when it can clearly handle the influx of licenses?
The real issue is that the Department of Homeland Security for 30 years has the ability to deprioritize deportations and allow immigrants to work and collect benefits in the U.S. legally, as Justice Elena Kagan eventually forced Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller to concede, according to the Huffington Post.
Texas can’t sue the DHS to stop it from performing its legal actions on immigration, so it sued the president instead.
Waiting For A Ruling
Obstructionist Republicans sued President Obama because they didn’t agree with his executive action on immigration. They obstructed the president again by refusing to confirm District Court Justice Merrick Garland, President Obama’s appointee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February.
Any ruling other than a dismissal would lead to continued Republican obstructionism on a massive scale, and they’d used this as precedent to sue the government over everything President Obama ever did, leading to frivolous lawsuits that would clog the courts for years to come.
The good news is that the the Huffington Post described the Supreme Court as “skeptical,” so there’s hope the justices saw through Paxton’s smokescreen and will stop the madness by dismissing the case.
Featured Image by Br. Christian Seno, OFM via Flickr.com/CC by 2.0.
