The Obama administration should request a redo by the U.S. Supreme Court, which deadlocked 4-4 Thursday over President Barack Obama's plans to shield from deportation millions of immigrants living illegally in the U.S., say legal experts who support the White House's executive actions.
The federal government has the option of asking the high court to reconsider the case once a ninth justice is appointed to fill the seat of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, said David Leopold, and immigration attorney who is the past president and past general counsel of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, wrote on the online news site Medium after the court's ruling.
“The Obama administration does not have to simply accept the Supreme Court’s failure to rule,” Leopold wrote. “It can — indeed should — immediately file a motion for reargument before the court to take place once a ninth justice is confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Granted, given the continued obstruction by Senate Republicans, a new justice may not be seated for several months and possibly not until the next President is sworn in.”
President Franklin Roosevelt’s administration successfully asked for two such rehearings during the New Deal, said Walter Dellinger, who served as solicitor general during President Bill Clinton’s administration.
"This battle is not over," Dellinger wrote for Slate Thursday. "The Department of Justice should consider taking a step it has rarely taken: filing a motion asking the court to reconsider the decision and further asking the court to defer acting on the petition until there is a full complement of justices."
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.
Led by Texas, 26 states — including Georgia — fought to block Obama's executive actions in court, arguing they amount to an unconstitutional end run around Congress. Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens' office had no immediate comment about whether the federal government should ask for a do-over.
Meanwhile, a local immigrant rights group – the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights – is planning to hold a demonstration across from the state Capitol Monday morning and call for a moratorium on deportations in the wake of the high court's impasse.
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