Feds seek Expedited Stay of Immigration Injunction
Obama immigration executive action on hold until a stay granted.
The federal government has filed in U.S. District Court an Emergency Expedited Motion for a Stay of the Temporary Injunction putting a stop to Obama’s executive immigration action.
The successful plaintiff states have filed a letter opposing expedited treatment.
If the District Court denies the stay, or does not rule by the close of business on Wednesday, February 26, the feds will go to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals seeking emergency relief.
Both documents are embedded below. Discussion and analysis to follow.
Here’s part of the Intro to the government’s motion and brief:
A stay pending appeal is necessary to ensure that the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS” or “Department”) is able to most effectively protect national security, public safety, and the integrity of the border. Specifically, the Deferred Action Guidance enjoined by this Court is an integral part of the Department’s comprehensive effort to set and effectuate immigration enforcement priorities that focus on the removal of threats to public safety, national security risks, and recent border crossers, thereby best securing the Homeland in the face of limited resources. Absent a stay, DHS will sustain irreparable harm—harm that would not be cured, even if Defendants ultimately prevail on that appeal….
In light of the immediacy of the harm to Defendants and the public in the absence of a stay of the Court’s Order, which prevents Defendants from complying with the timeline set forth in the Guidance for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) to begin accepting
The letter from the States opposing expedited treatment of the motion state, in pertinent part:
The Plaintiff States write to oppose Defendants’ request for expedited consideration of their motion filed today to stay the Court’s preliminary injunction pending appeal. See Dkt. No. 150 at 7. As this Court found, defendants have no emergency need to take applications for benefits under the new program. Mem. Op. & Order (Dkt. No. 145) at 118-21. Defendants have implicitly recognized as much, by waiting a full week from the preliminary injunction to file this stay motion. Indeed, if Defendants had any compelling claim of a looming, irreversible harm from temporary injunctive relief, they would have featured it previously. They had ample time to do so: Plaintiffs requested a preliminary injunction on December 4, some six weeks before this Court’s January 15 motion hearing….
At the very least, Plaintiffs should be allowed to respond within the same seven days that Defendants enjoyed to prepare their motion after the preliminary injunction issued. It is unreasonable to demand that Plaintiffs respond, and the Court rule on the motion, in under three days.
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Texas v. U.S. – Immigration Case – Motion for Stay Pending Appeal
Texas v. U.S. – Immigration Case – Feb 23 2015 Letter Opposing Expedited Stay
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Comments
If they get the stay, won’t they simply carry out the amnesty while the plaintiffs are still awaiting a hearing in appeals court? Won’t that leave the plaintiffs with no conceivable remedy?
No there you go again – with those pesky little details. How the heck is a good communist state supposed to get settled in if annoying little patriots like you keep throwing sand in the gears?
Go hang out at a tea party or something.
Stand strong, Judge Hanen.
Let ’em try this before the 5th Circuit.
Newb Question:
Does this request for a stay go to Judge Hanen, to reconsider the injunction? Or, does this go to another Judge?
It goes to Judge Hanen. There will be (or possibly has been) an appeal filed by the government with the Fifth Circuit to vacate the Preliminary Injunction. This request for a stay is for the trial court to stay its PI pending a ruling by the Fifth Circuit. It’s hard to see that the request for stay will be granted.
What I think is a fatal flaw in the government’s argument is that it could have taken this action (DAPA) at any time in the past six years and did not, so the argument that it will be irreparably harmed if the PI is not stayed is very specious. Injunctions are equitable remedies, and there is a doctrine of equity called laches, which means that if a litigant lets something that it might otherwise be entitled to do lapse for too long, it cannot suddenly claim that it is entitled to do something (sort of like a statute of limitations). The government waited until after the November 2014 election to take the DAPA action, more than 70 months after the 2009 inauguration, and it could have published the DAPA memorandum at any time in the prior 70 months. To argue at this point that waiting for the resolution of the PI appeal would cause irreparable harm is laughable.
To be technical, there is no appeal because the case is still running. What they are trying to do is obtain interlocutory review of a district court temporary/interim order. The fed appeals courts do not like interlocutory review and they rarely allow one. It’s important to understand that it is a matter of discretion whether review is granted (unlike appeal which is a right).
I would venture to say that the filing and calendaring of the motion for discretionary review (if one actually has been filed) is a millimeter away from a FRCP 11 violation in that the undisputed facts do not demonstrate an emergency and the govt’s procrastination contradicts the requisite good faith needed to file the motion.
20,000 illegal aliens crossed the Texas border in just the past two months, according to a story linked on Drudge.
The administration is probably worried that if word of the amnesty injunction gets out, the current swarms of foreigners storming across our southern border might ease up somewhat. Obama knows his plan to “fundamentally transform” the U.S. by flooding it with millions more poor, third-world foreigners is eventually going to be stopped, if not by the courts then by the next administration. His goal is to get as many here — and signed up for taxpayer-funded benefits — as possible in the meantime.
IANAL, but the defendants’ introduction alone makes no sense to me. How on earth can the government’s inability to wrongfully reward millions of people who shouldn’t be here, compromise our security?
It’s not like we expect DHS to finally do their jobs and deport and otherwise penalize them for any of their unlawful acts. We know already that the original DACA recipients weren’t vetted, and were advised not to include incriminating information on their applications.
I still don’t understand why deferring deportation, even on an individual basis, has to include additional benefits that harm law-abiding citizens and legal residents.
Of course you don’t understand; you’re not an insane commie leftist fool.
Couldn’t this argument by the government be literally used to justify anything it does? To wit, so what if no-knock no-warrant entry without probable cause is blatantly unconstitutional – the public is in danger! We cannot leave any stone unturned, no house unsearched! Anything short of that would be a violation of our obligation to protect the public.
So yeah, without having to bother with a state of emergency, they want immediate and indefinite suspension of the law, regardless of whether the law as it is actually written opposes what they are doing. Yield to executive power, it’s for your own good, and the law be damned.