Georgians split over president’s executive actions on immigration

The U.S. Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments for April 18. A federal court in Texas and the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals have ruled against the president's executive actions.

In 2014, Obama announced plans to shield from deportation millions of immigrants living illegally in the U.S. Those plans would apply to young immigrants who were illegally brought to the U.S. as children as well as people without legal status who have children who were born in the U.S. or are legal permanent residents.

“I remain confident that after hearing the lawsuit brought by the state of Texas in opposition to President Obama’s executive actions on immigration,” Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said in a prepared statement this month when he joined more than 100 other cities and counties in filing a brief in support of the president’s actions, “the Supreme Court will vote to lift the nationwide injunction and come down on the right side of history by allowing this imperative step toward fixing our broken immigration system.”

Also among those who have sided with the president’s plans this month are Atlanta Police Chief George Turner; U.S. Reps. Sanford Bishop, Hank Johnson, John Lewis, and David Scott; and Asian Americans Advancing Justice Atlanta, the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials and the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights.

Georgia and the other states suing to block the president’s plans filed court papers in January, asking the U.S. Supreme Court not to take up the case. They said Obama’s actions represent “a crucial change in the nation’s immigration law and policy — and that is precisely why it could be created only by Congress, rather than unilaterally imposed by the executive.” The appeals court’s decision against the president’s actions, the states wrote, “was necessary to uphold the separation of powers and ensure the proper functioning of the administrative state.”