Justice Department lawyers involved in the case have denied any intentional misstatements to the court, but have apologized for any confusion. | AP Photo Justice Department orders more ethics training for lawyers

The Justice Department has ordered a large swath of its attorneys to undergo additional ethics training in response to a judge's findings that he was misled by federal government lawyers handling a high-profile lawsuit over President Barack Obama's immigration policies.

The new training — a one-hour, one-time program on top of existing requirements — was ordered last month for the roughly 1,000 attorneys in Justice's Civil Division and disclosed in a court filing made public Monday afternoon.


The move follows protracted legal wrangling before U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen over his conclusion that lawyers fending off a lawsuit by 26 states over Obama's immigration actions deliberately led the judge to believe — incorrectly — that none of Obama's 2014 changes to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program had gone into effect.

The new training appears to be a concession aimed at mollifying Hanen, who issued rulings in May blasting the Justice Department for its conduct in the case. Among the sanctions the judge ordered was three hours of additional ethics training for every Washington-based DOJ lawyer who appears in state or federal courts in the 26 states involved in the lawsuit. Hanen later agreed to put his orders on hold pending another submission from the feds.

Justice Department lawyers involved in the case have denied any intentional misstatements to the court, but have apologized for any confusion.

In the court papers released Monday, Justice sounds even more abject in its apologies, while still not conceding any deliberate deception.

"We do not dispute that we made mistakes that led to the unfortunate circumstances here: at critical times we provided incomplete information to the Court because of our failure to appreciate the scope of the questions asked of us; and we used imprecise terminology in our oral and written submissions to the Court," the department's latest plea reads.

"As a result, our submissions left the Court with an incorrect understanding of the facts regarding grants by the Department of Homeland Security ('DHS') of three-year terms of deferred action to individuals qualifying under the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival ('DACA') eligibility criteria. We acknowledge and apologize for these mistakes, and for the valuable time the Court has expended on this matter as a result. But we did not intend to mislead the Court or to conceal any fact concerning implementation of the Guidance," the new submission says.

The federal government filing says DOJ lawyers handling the matter were focused on how Obama's directive expanded eligibility for DACA and it simply "did not cross their minds" at the outset that the switch to three-year work permits was relevant to the case. Once lawyers litigating the case became aware that 108,000 such permits had been issued, the attorneys acted to inform the court within two business days, the feds say.

Immigrants rights advocates are objecting to another aspect of Hanen's sanctions order: a requirement that the federal government file details on about 50,000 of the individuals who got the three-year permits. The judge alarmed the advocates by saying he might order that information disclosed to the states pressing the lawsuit.

An individual player in the case has also filed his or her own response to Hanen's sanctions order. That submission is still enveloped in secrecy.

The new ethics training for Justice Department lawyers was ordered by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Benjamin Mizer.

"In light of the events in this case, and in order to both demonstrate and further the Department's and the Civil Division's commitment to the highest standards expected of us and our utmost regard for the trust extended to the Department by this and other federal courts, I have asked an outside expert in attorney ethics and professional responsibility to provide special one-hour training of his design for civil division attorneys," Mizer wrote in a July 29 declaration filed with the judge last week and released in an edited form Monday.

"All Civil Division attorneys, including myself, will be required to complete this training program within the next 90 days," Mizer added. "It is my sincere hope that this training will help to assure the Court that we are making every effort to maintain the trust placed in the Department of Justice."

The underlying suit had major consequences for Obama's immigration actions, effectively scuttling much of the second round of steps he took on that issue, announced in November 2014. Hanen blocked those moves, a federal appeals court refused to disturb that injunction and, in June, the Supreme Court deadlocked on the issue.

The 4-4 ruling from the high court left the judge's injunction in place and dispatched Obama's last hopes of implementing the moves before he leaves office next January.

Hanen has set an Aug. 31 hearing on the remaining issues in the case, including the appropriate sanctions for the misconduct he found. Unless he backs down dramatically, appeals on that issue are all but certain.