WASHINGTON (AP) - The government will seek a stay of a judge's decision that has temporarily blocked President Barack Obama's action to protect millions of immigrants from deportation, the White House said last Friday.
The Justice Department paperwork was to be filed with a federal court in Texas by Monday, said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.
Earnest said the decision to seek a stay is separate from the administration's plan to appeal last week's ruling by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Texas. He said Obama's advisers believe the president acted within his rights last year when he used his executive authority to spare from deportation as many as 5 million people who are in the U.S. illegally.
The judge's ruling came in response to a lawsuit against Obama's actions that was filed by a coalition of 26 states, led by Texas. The states argued that the president does not have the authority to allow the groups of immigrants to legally stay and work in the United States.
"The law is on our side, and history is on our side," Obama said last week in response to the judge's ruling. "This is not the first time where a lower court judge has blocked something or attempted to block something that ultimately is going to be lawful, and I'm confident that it is well within my authority."
The White House has said it will appeal the judge's ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans.
Meanwhile, a federal court judge last Friday issued a preliminary injunction against Immigration and Customs Enforcement's policy of detaining Central American mothers and children seeking asylum in the U.S. The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the case, claimed the detentions were part of a strategy to deter other asylum-seekers from coming to the U.S.
In granting the injunction, Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote that the Obama administration's "current policy of considering deterrence is likely unlawful, and ... causes irreparable harm to mothers and children seeking asylum."
Judy Rabinovitz, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, said, "This ruling means that the government cannot continue to lock up families without an individualized determination that they pose a danger or flight risk that requires their detention."
Published: Tue, Feb 24, 2015
