Appeals court sides with Obama on immigration action

A federal appeals court’s ruling Tuesday upholding the dismissal of a lawsuit over President Barack Obama’s first major executive action to aid illegal immigrants could help the Obama administration fight a more significant suit that has resulted in Obama’s second wave of immigration orders being halted nationwide.

A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that several immigration agents and the state of Mississippi lacked legal standing to sue over Obama’s 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program because evidence that the agents or the state would be harmed by the effort was too speculative.


“Neither Mississippi nor the Agents have alleged a sufficiently concrete and particularized injury that would give Plaintiffs standing to challenge DACA,” Judge W. Eugene Davis wrote in an opinion joined by Judges Carolyn King and Priscilla Owen.

In February, a federal judge based in Brownsville, Texas issued an injunction against Obama’s decision last year to expand the DACA program to give quasi-legal status and work permits to millions more illegal immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as minors. The order from U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen also barred the Department of Homeland Security from moving forward with a plan to extend the same benefits to illegal immigrant parents of U.S. citizens or permanent residents.

Hanen acted at the request of 26 states, led by Texas, arguing that Obama lacked the legal authority to implement what they contend is a de facto amnesty and legalization of millions of immigrants. One of the key issues in that case is whether Texas and the other states showed they would be harmed by the new round of immigration actions.

Legal experts scouring the 5th Circuit ruling Tuesday focused in particular on its treatment of Mississippi’s challenge to the original DACA program, aimed at so-called Dreamers.

“The district court held that Mississippi’s alleged fiscal injury was purely speculative because there was no concrete evidence that Mississippi’s costs had increased or will increase as a result of DACA. Based on the record before the district court, we agree,” Davis wrote. “Mississippi submitted no evidence that any DACA eligible immigrants resided in the state. Nor did Mississippi produce evidence of costs it would incur if some DACA-approved immigrants came to the state.”

Davis noted that the only evidence of damages was a 2006 study showing social service costs and other state expenditures in Mississippi increased more than $25 million a year due to illegal immigration generally, not specific to the Obama program. The ruling also notes that focusing deportation efforts might relieve some burdens on the state.

“It could be that the reallocation of DHS assets is resulting in the removal of immigrants that impose a greater financial burden on the state,” wrote Davis, a Reagan appointee. King is a Carter appointee and Owen, a George W. Bush appointee.

Rulings of one three-judge panel on legal issues are binding on other panels of the appeals court, including one expected to hear arguments on the Obama administration’s request to stay Hanen’s injunction against the second wave of Obama immigration actions.

However, the panel assigned to that case could conclude that the facts are different because Texas and other states presented different evidence of the costs they would incur if Obama’s expanded immigration action went into effect. The main evidence was that issuing drivers licenses to those granted deferred action would increase state expenses because the charge for licenses doesn’t cover all related expenses.

Other states have argued the deferred-action programs and associated work permits would have a net positive financial effect on state coffers.

The 5th Circuit is widely considered the most conservative federal appeals court in the country. Among active judges, it leans 2-1 Republican.