A
federal judge in Texas has ordered a halt, at least temporarily, to
President Obama’s executive actions on immigration, siding with Texas
and 25 other states that filed a lawsuit opposing the initiatives.
In
an order filed on Monday, the judge, Andrew S. Hanen of Federal
District Court in Brownsville, prohibited the Obama administration from
carrying out programs the president announced in November that would
offer protection from deportation and work permits to as many as five
million undocumented immigrants. The first of those programs was
scheduled to start receiving applications on Wednesday.
Read the rest here.
Best news I've had in weeks.
5 comments:
Immigration is a local phenomenon, but we insist on administering it nationally. Actually, that's an issue with most federal policy.
Hmmm. I don't think I agree. Immigration is a national problem. Their presence affects the entire country. And of course once inside the border they are also largely free to move about as they wish.
Read the constitution, anti-gnostic! The Congress shall set the standards for immigration and naturalization of citizens. It is, thus, a national issue.
Read your Constitution again, chief. Here's some extended commentary:
Article I, Section 8, clause 4 of the Constitution entrusts the federal legislative branch with the power to “establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.” This clear textual command for uniformity establishes that the federal government, specifically Congress, is responsible for crafting the laws that determine how and when noncitizens can become naturalized citizens of the United States. But control over naturalization does not necessarily require full control over immigration. And indeed, for the first century of the United States’ existence, many states enacted laws regulating and controlling immigration into their own borders. Various states passed laws aimed at preventing a variety of populations from entering the borders of their states, including individuals with criminal records, people reliant on public assistance, slaves, and free blacks.
It was not until the late 19th century that Congress began to actively regulate immigration, in particular, with measures designed to restrict Chinese immigration. By this time, the Supreme Court had begun to articulate clear limits on state immigration powers. In 1849, with the Passenger Cases, the Supreme Court struck down efforts by New York and Massachusetts to impose a head tax on incoming immigrants. Four justices concluded that such taxes usurped congressional power to regulate commerce under Article I, Section 8, clause 3 of the Constitution. A unanimous court applied the same rationale in 1876, striking down a New York state statute taxing immigrants on incoming vessels in Henderson v. Mayor of New York. A few years later, in 1884, with a decision in the Head Money Cases, the Court for the first time upheld a federal regulation of immigration, also on Commerce Clause grounds.
From that time on, the Court upheld federal immigration regulations against constitutional challenges, although the underlying rationale shifted. With the Chinese Exclusion Case in 1889, the Court began issuing a series of decisions in which it treated congressional power over the regulation of immigration as a virtually unreviewable, plenary power.
I repeat: immigrants are admitted by federal dictate but live somewhere locally. Thus, the federal government can insist, for example, that Palestinian refugees can be plopped down with a Section 8 landlord next to a Hebrew township. Or that refugees from equatorial Africa should be warehoused in the northern Midwest, where they're prone to vitamin D deficiency and upper respiratory infections.
A local phenomenon administered nationally.
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