Judge Blocks Obama's Deferred Deportation Policy for Undocumented Immigrants

A federal judge in Texas on Monday issued a preliminary injunction blocking the U.S. government from enacting President Barack Obama's executive order on immigration to defer deportations for up to 5 million undocumented immigrants. U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen of the Southern District of Texas temporarily blocked the federal government from implementing "any and all aspects" of the order, which protected millions of people in the country illegally from immediate deportation. Hanen's ruling allows a lawsuit filed by Texas and 25 other states challenging Obama's executive order to go forward. In a memorandum accompanying his order, Hanen wrote that the lawsuit should go forward and that without a preliminary injunction the states will "suffer irreparable harm in this case."  "The genie would be impossible to put back into the bottle," he wrote, adding that he agreed with the plaintiffs' argument that legalizing the presence of millions of people is a "virtually irreversible" action. In his ruling, Hanen said the Obama administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act. The preliminary injunction applies to the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent residents, better known as DAPA, and expansions to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, both of which Obama announced in November. DAPA, part of which was set to go into effect on Wednesday, would grant work permits and defer deportation for three years of undocumented immigrants who are both parents of U.S. citizens and who've been living in the U.S. since 2010...more