The Obama administration has filed an appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit seeking to lift U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen’s hold on President Obama’s executive amnesty.
The Justice Department filed an emergency motion Thursday to stay Hanen’s preliminary hold on the executive actions, in which he ruled in favor of 26 states that are currently challenging the executive amnesty.
“The district court’s order is unprecedented and wrong,” the Justice Department argues in its filing. “The Constitution does not entitle States to intrude into the uniquely federal domain of immigration enforcement….Yet the district court has taken the extraordinary step of allowing a State to override the United States’ exercise of its enforcement discretion in the immigration laws.”
The appeal to the 5th Circuit comes after the Justice Department threatened the lower court to lift its injunction or else it would appeal.
Instead of lifting the injunction Hanen called on the administration to answer for its moves to enact a part of Obama’s executive amnesty early — namely issuing some 100,000 expanded work permits under Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programs in advance of the expanded program’s start date.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton responded to the appeal by vowing to continue to fight against the executive actions and pointed to the early begining to expanded DACA as a major concern.
“The most pressing issue at hand is the extent to which the Obama Administration has already issued expanded work permits to illegal immigrants, in direct contradiction to what they told the district court,” Paxton said.
He also noted that once the executive amnesty gets underway it will be difficult to roll back.
“Further, as the court noted in granting a preliminary injunction, any implementation of President Obama’s directives will be difficult, if not impossible, to reverse,” he added.”
The Justice Department is asking for a ruling from the 5th Circuit within 14 days.