The Department of Homeland Security says it will follow a judge’s order to restart the President Barack Obama’s ‘DACA’ amnesty and will renew work-permits given to 15,000 illegal immigrants.
The statement was released late Saturday night, but the statement did not say if the 15,000 ‘DACA’ illegals whose work permits have expired since September will actually get renewed permits before the administration’s lawyers can get through the legal process needed before the Supreme Court can countermand the judge’s order.
To block the judge’s order, the administration first must file an appeal with the California-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeals court is expected to support the judge and reject the administration’s appeal. Once the appeal is denied, White House lawyers can ask the nine-member Supreme Court to countermand the orders from the appeals court and the subordinate judge.
According to the agency:
Jan. 13, 2018, Update: Due to a federal court order, USCIS has resumed accepting requests to renew a grant of deferred action under DACA. Until further notice, and unless otherwise provided in this guidance, the DACA policy will be operated on the terms in place before it was rescinded on Sept. 5, 2017.
The declaration may give Democrats the political opportunity to back away from their unpopular threat to shut down the federal government’s 2018 budget unless the GOP Congress and President Donald Trump provide citizenship to at least 3.25 million illegals — and also to millions of chain-migration relatives.
Starting March 5, roughly 1,000 young illegals are expected to lose their DACA work permits each day, opening up hundreds of additional jobs for American workers during the run-up to the November midterm election.
The judge’s decision, issued January 9, said the administration had not followed proper procedures for ending the benefits to illegals granted by Obama’s policy of offering work-permits to younger illegal immigrants who say they were brought into the United States as children by their illegal immigrant parents. Administration lawyers argued that Obama’s policy was illegal and that all required procedures were followed.
Obama’s amnesty was created despite federal law which bars work-permits for illegal immigrants.
A related amnesty for the illegal-immigrant parents of children born in the United States was also struck down by a Texas judge. That decision was later affirmed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is based in New Orleans. The issue then went to the Supreme Court, but the sudden death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia allowed the four progressive justices on the court to block the top court from confirming the Texas judge’s decision.
Since then, President Donald Trump and the GOP Senate have approved a replacement justice, Neil Gorsuch. His vote is likely to provide a majority in the Supreme Court against the Obama amnesty.