The State of Texas has charged in a federal court that the Obama Administration started deferring deportation proceedings for thousands of people illegally in the United States well before a new expanded immigration program announced by the President was scheduled to start on February 18.
"In an apparent attempt to quickly execute President Obama’s unlawful, unconstitutional amnesty plan, the Obama Administration appears to have already been issuing expanded work permits, in direct contradiction to what they told a federal judge previously in this litigation," said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
At issue is the DACA program for young people brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents - the expanded program put forward by the President as part of his executive actions on immigration was to have started taking applications on February 18, 2015, as indicated by this early February posting on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website:
Credit: Jamie Dupree
Credit: Jamie Dupree
But the Justice Department has now acknowledged in court papers filed this week that the Obama Administration got a head start on that expanded DACA - giving thousands of people a new three year protection from possible deportation.
"Specifically, between November 24, 2014 and the issuance of the Court's Order, USCIS granted three-year periods of deferred action to approximately 100,000 individuals who had requested deferred action under the original 2012 DACA guidelines," the feds wrote.
That revelation was a bit of a shock to Texas officials, who immediately asked the federal judge handling this case to allow for a review.
"The circumstances behind this must be investigated, and the motion we seek would help us determine to what extent the Administration might have misrepresented the facts in this case," the Texas Attorney General wrote.
The Justice Department says the early grants of 'deferred action' were given to people who had already received temporary protection under the 2012 DACA, and were "eligible for renewal."
The admission is on page 3 of this document that was submitted earlier this week.
In that court filing, the Justice Department said it did not believe the feds needed "to revoke three-year periods of deferred action and work authorization" which were issued between November 24, 2015 and the recent temporary injunction against the President's executive actions.
Credit: Jamie Dupree
Credit: Jamie Dupree
While the Obama Administration had demanded quick resolution of its request for an emergency stay of the judge's injunction, it has now been over two weeks since that ruling was announced.
The feds had threatened to quickly take the case to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. No appeal of the judge's ruling has been filed as yet by the Obama Administration.
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