Supreme Court to Hear Challenge to Obama Immigration Actions

*The Obama administration and immigration activists are breathing a collective sigh of solace. The U. S. Supreme Court had left the president’s executive actions on immigration case out of its initial docket list on Friday. Speculation heated-up about why and what the consequences might be. It turns out that the justices may have been weighing a caveat to the case. Here’s how it breaks-down: The State of Texas and 26 other states asked for an injunction against the actions because they created a new class of people eligible for state-subsidized driver’s licenses. A federal judge granted the injunction saying the Government didn’t comply with a notice-and-comment rule under the Administrative Procedure Act. But now, the Supreme Court says it will entertain these arguments as well as the question of the constitutionality of the executive actions themselves. In other words, they’ll deliberate if Obama has the power to do what he did with the immigratioin actions. And that’s an entirely different question altogether. VL

By Adam Liptak and Michael D. Shear, The New York Times

a legal challenge to President Obama’s overhaul of the nation’s immigration rules. The court, which has twice rejected challenges to Mr. Obama’s health care law, will now determine the fate of one of his most far-reaching executive actions.

Fourteen months ago, Mr. Obama ordered the creation of a program intended to allow as many as five million illegal immigrants who are the parents of citizens or of lawful permanent residents to apply for a program sparing them from deportation and providing them work permits. The program was called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA.