Democrats stand with feds, Republicans with states in immigration case

To what extent may the president of the United States prioritize the way he goes about executing the laws passed by Congress?

That’s the key issue in the Supreme Court case of United States v. Texas, which was argued today before the eight currently serving justices. (Republican have refused to consider the nomination of U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington D.C. Circuit Chief Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, leaving the court with only eight members.)

Twenty-six states, including Nevada, have sued the federal government, contending that Obama’s program to defer deportations of illegal immigrants who are the parents of children brought to the country at a young age. The states contend the Deferred Action for the Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents program exceeds President Barack Obama’s constitutional authority, and violates his duty to “…take care that the laws are faithfully executed.”

While it’s always problematic to predict the outcome of a case based on questions asked during oral argument, it’s obvious that several justices (including swing Justice Anthony Kennedy) were skeptical of the government’s argument, which is that the president has the authority to decide to deport certain people (convicted criminals, repeat immigration offenders) first, while leaving children and their law-abiding parents in the country. The states, however, contend that the president exceeded his authority when he created the deferred-action programs.

Here in Nevada, plenty of people weighed in on the issue.

“To his credit, President Obama saw Republicans’ inertia on immigration reform and decided to act,” said U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, on the Senate floor. “He told us at the State of the Union Address that he was tired of waiting around for Republicans to do things – he’d do things himself and that’s what he has done. Using his executive authority under existing law, he worked to fix the system and prioritize enforcement resources on those who actually pose a threat to our national security and public safety. …

“Not only were these executive actions the right thing to do, they are also smart investments. Nevada would benefit from a $3.3 million per year increase in state and local tax revenues,” Reid added. “And Nevadans would see an increase in earnings of more than $1 billion over ten years. Together, these programs will help grow the American economy by $230 billion over the next ten years. …

“The Supreme Court must do the right thing and recognize President Obama’s authority. That is why I joined 38 other Senate Democrats and 186 House Democrats in filing an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, making clear that Congress granted the Department of Homeland Security broad discretion in enforcing our country’s immigration laws,” he said.

Ah, yes, but remember the time when Reid said the president had every right to make important recess appointments, notwithstanding the fact that the Senate wasn’t actually in a recess at the time? Yeah, the Supreme Court disagreed by a vote of 9-0. This, obviously, is a much harder case to parse, because the president is not defying Congress outright, but he’s also not deporting every illegal immigrant who’s been caught.

Former Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democratic candidate to replace Reid in the Senate, agreed with the senior senator’s take.

“This issue is personal for me – my grandfather immigrated to this country from Chihuahua, Mexico,” Cortez Masto said. “Supporters of this lawsuit would tear families apart for nothing more than partisan politics. This is exactly the type of dysfunction and partisanship Nevadans are fed up with. The immigration executive actions wouldn’t even be necessary if politicians like Congressman [Joe] Heck [a Republican candidate for Reid’s Senate seat] had done their job and passed comprehensive immigration reform.

“We need real immigration reform that secures our borders and provides a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Until then, these executive actions are necessary to prevent families from being torn apart. Unfortunately, both of my opponents, Sharron Angle and Congressman Heck, not only oppose comprehensive immigration reform, they also oppose the executive actions to keep families together, want to repeal birthright citizenship, and have pledged to support Donald Trump if he wins the Republican nomination. Unlike my opponents, I will always stand with Nevada’s Latino community, not anti-immigrant extremists like Donald Trump.”

First, nice attempt to link Angle and Heck. Second, it must be noted that Heck has said he supports comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship, but that he opposed the bi-partisan Senate bill because it didn’t guarantee border security sufficiently. He’s also questioned the concept of “birthright citizenship,” the idea that children born on American soil are citizens regardless of the immigration status of their parents.

But Angle? She once told a roomful of Hispanic kids that some of them looked a little bit Asian to her, and she aired the most despicable, most racist ad of the 2010 cycle, depicting immigrants as violent gang members lurking outside a border fence. Heck’s never done anything like that.

Of course, that didn’t stop Nevada Democratic Party spokeswoman, Sarah Zukowski from making similar arguments, trying further to link Heck and Angle on the immigration issue.

Meanwhile, Republican Attorney General Adam Laxalt — who made the decision to join Nevada to the lawsuit against the wishes of Gov. Brian Sandoval — concluded that Obama had exceeded his authority.

“In every generation, there is temptation to alter the structures and constraints of our Constitution in order to meet the political desires or expediencies of the moment,” said Laxalt. “I agree with our nation’s founders that our freedoms are best preserved in both the short term and the long term by politically operating within our constitutional structure.”

Of course, that’s not the issue. The federal government and Texas are arguing over how much authority the president has within our constitutional structure to determine how a law may be implemented. Nobody is trying to overthrow American constitutional governance nor spit in the eyes of the founders, as much as Laxalt may want to portray it that way.

The AG continued:

“Today marks an important day for the rule of law. The Supreme Court heard arguments on whether the president can act alone and create immigration laws without working with Congress as required by the Constitution. By the president’s own admission, his administration has disregarded checks-and-balances set forth in the Constitution, and the president’s executive order on immigration is no exception. The intent of the states’ lawsuit is not to give an opinion about immigration policy — that is the job of president working with Congress — but to restore the balance of power between the president and Congress. As shown by decisions in federal district and appellate courts in this case, the president overreached by attempting to make the law himself. I remain optimistic that the Supreme Court decision will result in the cherished principles of the rule of law and the separation of powers between the president and Congress being upheld.”

But the reality is, we’re hearing his lawsuit because the Congress refused to work at all. Although a bi-partisan majority of senators passed an immigration bill, House Republicans simply refused to consider it. (For that matter, they refused to consider any immigration bill.) So Obama said he would use whatever authority had to provide relief to certain immigrants, while deporting others at a robust pace. If Congress had made efforts toward passing even a compromise piece of legislation, that would be something. But in this instance, House Republicans refused to act at all, the way Senate Republicans are refusing to act on Obama’s Supreme Court nomination.

Also, as Laxalt most probably knows, the decisions of federal district courts and appellate courts are not the final word on any case or controversy; it’s the Supreme Court that determines what the law is. Perhaps Obama did exceed his authority. But if he did, it will be the Supreme Court, not an appellate court, that issues the final judgment.