Tag Archive for: Lawsuit against immigration executive actions

David Isaacson

IGNORING THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: AN INITIAL REACTION TO JUDGE HANEN’S DECISION ENJOINING DAPA AND EXPANDED DACA

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On February 16th, as the holiday weekend was coming to an end, Judge Andrew S. Hanen of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas issued a Memorandum Opinion and Order in the case of State of Texas, et al., v. United States, et al.,  granting the motion of the plaintiff States for a preliminary injunction against the “Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents” program, known as DAPA, and the expansion of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, known as DACA, that were set out in a November 20, 2014 Memorandum from Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson.  (The original DACA program, as instituted in 2012 by then-Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, was not challenged by the plaintiff States, and is not affected by the injunction.)  According to Judge Hanen, the plaintiff States have shown a likelihood of success on the merits of their claim that DAPA and the DACA expansion were authorized in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), as well as meeting the other requirements for a preliminary injunction.

The Memorandum Opinion and Order is more than 120 pages long, so a full analysis is not feasible in a blog post, especially one being published just two days after the Memorandum Opinion and Order itself.  In this blog post, however, I will focus on what I think is one of the most important conceptual flaws in the Memorandum Opinion and Order.  It appears to overlook key sources of statutory and regulatory authority for DAPA and expanded DACA, particularly the portions of DAPA and expanded DACA which relate to the grant of employment authorization and related benefits.

In the Memorandum Opinion and Order, Judge Hanen accepts that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and in particular the Secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, has the authority to set priorities regarding whom to remove from the United States.  “The law is clear that the Secretary’s ordering of DHS priorities is not subject to judicial second-guessing.”  Memorandum Opinion and Order at p. 69.  “The States do not dispute that Secretary Johnson has the legal authority to set these priorities,” Judge Hanen writes, “and this Court finds nothing unlawful about the Secretary’s priorities.”  Memorandum Opinion and Order at 92.

Judge Hanen asserts in his Memorandum Opinion and Order, however, that DHS’s statutorily granted authority to set enforcement priorities does not go so far as to authorize DAPA because of the affirmative benefits which are to be granted under the program.  He similarly holds that the usual presumption against APA review of decisions not to enforce a statute, as set out by the Supreme Court in Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821 (1985), does not apply in this case because DAPA is not merely a determination not to enforce:

Instead of merely refusing to enforce the INA’s removal laws against an individual, the DHS has enacted a wide-reaching program that awards legal presence, to individuals Congress has deemed deportable or removable, as well as the ability to obtain Social Security numbers, work authorization permits, and the ability to travel. 

Memorandum Opinion and Order at 85-86.  A similar theme is sounded later in the opinion when contrasting DHS’s statutory authority to set priorities, of which Judge Hanen approves, with the benefits conferred under DAPA:

The [Homeland Security Act]’s delegation of authority may not be read, however, to delegate to the DHS the right to establish a national rule or program of awarding legal presence—one which not only awards a three-year, renewable reprieve, but also awards over four million individuals, who fall into the category that Congress deems removable, the right to work, obtain Social Security numbers, and travel in and out of the country.

Memorandum Opinion and Order at 92.

Setting aside for the moment the ability to travel internationally, which is offered only as part of a subsequent application by those already granted DAPA or DACA and is granted when appropriate pursuant to the discretionary parole authority of INA §212(d)(5)(A), 8 U.S.C. §1182(d)(5)(A), the core of Judge Hanen’s concern (or at least a key portion of it) appears to be with the grant of employment authorization and the related documentation, such as a Social Security number, for which one who is granted employment authorization becomes eligible.  It is certainly true that those who receive Employment Authorization Documents (EADs), and are thereby able to receive Social Security numbers, become in an important sense “documented” where they were previously “undocumented”.  But it is not true that DHS has acted without statutory authority in giving out these important benefits.

It is at this point in the analysis that Judge Hanen appears to have overlooked a very important part of the legal landscape, what one might term the elephant in the room.  The statutory authority for employment authorization under the INA is contained in section 274A of the INA, otherwise known as 8 U.S.C. §1324a.  That section lays out a variety of prohibitions on hiring and employing an “unauthorized alien”, and concludes by defining the term as follows:

As used in this section, the term “unauthorized alien” means, with respect to the employment of an alien at a particular time, that the alien is not at that time either (A) an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence, or (B) authorized to be so employed by this chapter or by the Attorney General.

8 U.S.C. §1324a(h)(3).

That is, the Attorney General – whose functions have now been in relevant part taken over by the Secretary of Homeland Security – is statutorily empowered to authorize an alien to be employed, thus rendering the alien not an “unauthorized alien” under the INA.  There are a few restrictions on this authority noted elsewhere in the INA: for example, 8 U.S.C. §1226(a)(3) states that an alien who is arrested and placed in removal proceedings may not be provided with work authorization when released from custody unless he or she is otherwise eligible for such work authorization “without regard to removal proceedings”.  But overall, the authority provided by 8 U.S.C. §1324a(h)(3) is quite broad.

Moreover, it is not as though this authority has gone unremarked upon in the context of DAPA and DACA expansion.  The November 20, 2014 Memorandum from Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson regarding DAPA and DACA (or “Johnson DAPA Memorandum” for short)  states that “Each person who applies for deferred action pursuant to the criteria above shall also be eligible to apply for work authorization for the period of deferred action, pursuant to my authority to grant such authorization reflected in section 274A(h)(3) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.”  Johnson DAPA Memorandum at 4-5.  Nonetheless, other than a quote from this section of the Johnson DAPA Memorandum at page 13 of the Memorandum Opinion and Order, Judge Hanen’s Memorandum Opinion and Order does not appear to address the authority provided by INA §274A(h)(3), 8 U.S.C. §1324a(h)(3).

Pursuant to the authority contained in 8 U.S.C. §1324a(h)(3), the Attorney General and then the Secretary of Homeland Security have promulgated regulations for many years listing various categories of people who are authorized to accept employment by virtue of their status, or who can apply (initially to the INS, and now to USCIS) for authorization to accept employment.  The list is currently contained in 8 C.F.R. §274a.12, and as noted in earlierversionsof that regulatory section, it has existed in substantively similar form since at least 1987, when it was put in place by 52 Fed Reg. 16221.  Included on the list are not only such obvious categories as Lawful Permanent Residents, asylees, and refugees, but also those with various sorts of pending applications for relief, certain nonimmigrants, and many other categories.

One subsection of the 8 C.F.R. §274a.12 list that is particularly relevant here is 8 C.F.R. §274a.12(c)(14), the existence of which is acknowledged in passing by the Memorandum Opinion and Order at page 15 and footnote 66 of page 86 but is not discussed elsewhere.  That provision has long included among the list of those who may apply for employment authorization: “An alien who has been granted deferred action, an act of administrative convenience to the government which gives some cases lower priority, if the alien establishes an economic necessity for employment.”

As noted in footnote 11 of the Office of Legal Counsel memorandum regarding the legal basis for DAPA, which also addresses much of the authority discussed in the foregoing paragraphs, a prior version of this regulation authorizing employment for deferred-action recipients actually dates back to 1981.  But for present purposes, it is sufficient to point out that the 1987 version of the employment-authorization regulations has continued in force, with various modifications not relevant here, for over 35 years.  The validity of 8 C.F.R. §274a.12(c)(14) as it has been in effect for over three decades does not appear to have been challenged by the plaintiff States or by Judge Hanen, nor is it clear how it could be, given the broad authority provided by 8 U.S.C. §1324a(h)(3).

This long-existing regulation, grounded firmly in explicit statutory authorization, clearly states that an alien beneficiary of “an act of administrative convenience to the government which gives some cases lower priority,” 8 C.F.R. §274a.12(c)(14), which is called “deferred action,” id., may be granted employment authorization upon a showing of economic necessity.  (Such a showing of economic necessity is, in fact, required when seeking employment authorization under DACA, the instructions for which require the filing of the Form I-765 Worksheet regarding economic necessity; the instructions for DAPA, when they are published, will presumably have the same requirement.)  Thus, the regulation at 8 C.F.R. §274a.12(c)(14) authorizes the very features of DAPA and DACA which so troubled Judge Hanen as explained in the Memorandum Opinion and Order: the jump from the setting of enforcement priorities to the granting of affirmative benefits.  The notion that those whose cases are given lower priority as a matter of administrative convenience to the government, should potentially be granted employment authorization as a consequence, is not some new idea created for DAPA and DACA without notice and comment, but has been set out in regulations for many years.

One might say that DAPA and DACA are composed of two logically separable components: first, the designation of certain cases as lower priority, and second, the tangible benefits, principally employment authorization and related benefits, which flow from that designation.  Judge Hanen has found the designation of certain cases as lower priority to be unobjectionable, and has held the provision of tangible benefits in those cases to be in violation of the APA.  But according to a long-existing regulation which no one has challenged, the second component of DAPA and DACA may permissibly flow from the first.

It is therefore logically problematic to say, as Judge Hanen has done in his Memorandum Opinion and Order, that the provision of benefits under DAPA violates the APA even though the prioritization of cases would not.  The bridge from the first step to the second was, as it were, installed a long time ago.  Although Judge Hanen refers to “a new rule that substantially changes both the status and employability of millions,” Memorandum Opinion and Order at 112, it is in fact a very oldrule that has provided that those who are treated, as a matter of convenience, as being lower priority, should be made employable if they can demonstrate economic necessity.  Since the prioritization is concededly acceptable, it follows that the employment authorization and related benefits should be acceptable as well.

The only thing which Secretary Johnson’s November 2014 Memorandum really added to the pre-existing rules governing deferred action and its consequences was a set of criteria for DHS officers to use in determining whether to grant deferred action.  But since the grant of deferred action, as it has long been described in regulation, is merely “an act of administrative convenience to the government which gives some cases lower priority,” 8 C.F.R. §274a.12(c)(14), it can hardly be less permissible under the APA, or for that matter under the Constitution (the basis of another challenge which Judge Hanen did not reach), to grant deferred action than it is to give certain cases lower priority.  If DHS is indeed free to give certain cases lower priority, a proposition which is difficult to seriously dispute given basic background norms of prosecutorial discretion, then pursuant to 8 C.F.R. §274a.12(c)(14) as promulgated under the authority of 8 U.S.C. §1324a(h)(3), DHS is also free to grant employment authorization to those whose cases it has given lower priority and who can show economic necessity for employment.

In a world of finite resources, deciding which cases are worth pursuing necessarily implies deciding which cases are not worth pursuing.  Every dollar of funding or hour of officer time that DHS were to spend seeking to remove someone who meets the DAPA criteria would be a dollar of funding or hour of time that it could not spend seeking to remove a more worthy target.  The DAPA criteria are flexible by their nature, including a final criterion of “present[ing] no other factors that, in the exercise of discretion, makes the grant of deferred action inappropriate,” Johnson Memorandum at 4.  But where no such negative factors exist, DHS has reasonably determined that parents of U.S. citizens and Lawful Permanent Residents who meet the other DAPA criteria are likely to be appropriate candidates for deferred action—which is, to repeat, simply “an act of administrative convenience to the government which gives some cases lower priority,” 8 C.F.R. §274a.12(c)(14).  Having made that determination, DHS is authorized by both statute and regulation to confer employment authorization on those whose cases it has given this lower priority.  In ruling otherwise, without addressing either 8 C.F.R. §1324a(h)(3) or the implications of 8 C.F.R. §274a.12(c)(14) promulgated under its authority, Judge Hanen appears to have overlooked the proverbial elephant in the room.

Cyrus Mehta

JUSTICE, JUSTICE SHALL THOU PURSUE: WHY THE LAWSUIT AGAINST THE IMMIGRATION ACCOUNTABILITY EXECUTIVE ACTIONS IS A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY

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For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me

Matthew 25:35

A lawsuit was expected as soon as President Obama dramatically announced that his immigration executive actions could impact more than 5 million people. It is already here. On December 3, 2014, Texas took the lead with 18 other states in a lawsuitagainst the United States asserting that the President’s unilateral Immigration Accountability Executive Actions are unconstitutional.  The coalition of states in addition to Texas include Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin. 

The complaint essentially alleges that the DHS directive violates the President’s constitutional duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” under Article II, §3, Cl. 5 of the United States Constitution. Another basis for the complaint is that under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 553, the President’s executive action is akin to a rule, which needs to be promulgated through notice-and-comment rulemaking. The complaint also cites APA, 5 U.S.C. § 706, which gives a federal court power to set aside an agency action that is, among other things, arbitrary or capricious, contrary to constitutional right or in excess of statutory authority.  But it reads more like a white-hot tabloid, and instead of providing a forceful legal basis, loudly proclaims in bombastic fashion several prior utterances of President Obama claiming that he could never bypass Congress. Here are two out of many examples: 

“I am president, I am not king. I can’t do these things just by myself…[T]here’s a limit to the discretion that I can show because I am obliged to execute the law…I can’t just make the laws up by myself.”

“[I]f in fact I could solve all these problems without passing laws in Congress, then I would do so. But we’re also a nation of laws. That’s part of our tradition. And so the easy way out is to try to yell and pretend like I can do something by violating our laws. And what I’m proposing is the harder path, which is to use our democratic processes to achieve the same goal. “ 

The President still went ahead and changed the law himself despite his many previous assertions that he could not, according to the complaint, as if that can be a legal basis to challenge the actions. Interestingly, the President consistent with these prior utterances of his still insists even after November 20, 2014 that only Congress can change the law and bring on meaningful reform.  The centerpiece of the President’s executive actions is to broaden deferred action, which has always been deployed by the Executive Branch. The November 20, 2014 announcement defers the deportation of people who were in unlawful status as of the date of the announcement, and who were also the parents of US citizen or permanent resident children, provided they were in the United States before January 1, 2010. The previous Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program has been expanded to include those who came to the United States when they were below 16 years prior to January 1, 2010 instead of January 15, 2007. The previous age limit of 31 that was imposed in the June 15, 2012 announcement has been lifted. Eligible people who are a non-priority for enforcement purposes can apply for deferred action, and obtain employment and travel authorization. 

The lawsuit is a waste of time and taxpayers money. The authors have argued in A Time for Honest Truth: A Passionate Defense of President Obama’s Executive Actions that the President clearly has the legal authority to exercise discretion with respect to prioritizing on whom to enforce the law against, especially when Congress has not provided sufficient funding to deport 12 million undocumented people all at once. Even the conservative establishment refers to those who desire to deport 12 million as the “boxcar” crowd.  The truth is that deferred action is neither recent nor revolutionary. Widows of US citizens have been granted this benefit. Battered immigrants have sought and obtained refuge there.  Never has the size of a vulnerable population been a valid reason to say no. Even if the law suit alleges that the President does not have authority, now is a good time to remind critics about Justice Jackson’s famous concurrent opinion in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 635 (1952), which held that the President may act within a “twilight zone” in which he may have concurrent authority with Congress. Unlike Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, where the Supreme Court held that the President could not seize a steel mill to resolve a labor dispute without Congressional authorization, the executive branch under the recent immigration actions is well acting within Congressional authorization. In his famous concurring opinion, Justice Jackson reminded us that, however meritorious, separation of powers itself was not without limit: “While the Constitution diffuses power the better to secure liberty, it also contemplates that practice will integrate the dispersed powers into a workable government. It enjoins upon its branches separateness but interdependence, autonomy but reciprocity.” Id. at 635. Although President Truman did not have authorization to seize the mill to prosecute the Korean War, Justice Jackson laid a three-pronged test to determine whether the President violated the Separation of Powers clause. First, where the President has express or implied authorization by Congress, his authority would be at its maximum. Second, where the President acts in the absence of congressional authority or a denial of authority, the President may still act constitutionally within a “twilight zone” in which he may have concurrent authority with Congress, or in which its distribution is uncertain. Under the second prong, Congressional inertia may enable, if not invite, measures of independent presidential authority. Finally, under the third prong, where the President acts in a way that is incompatible with an express or implied will of Congress, the President’s power is at its lowest and is vulnerable to being unconstitutional.

Through the Immigration Accountability Executive Actions, the President is likely acting under either prong one or two of Justice Jackson’s tripartite test. INA Section 103(a)(1) charges the DHS Secretary with the administration and enforcement of the INA. This implies that the DHS can decide when to and when not to remove an alien..”  INA § 212(d)(5), which Congress also enacted, authorizes the Executive to grant interim benefits for “urgent humanitarian reasons” or “significant public benefits.”  Parole can also be used to allow promising entrepreneurs to come to the United States and establish startups, although this and many other actions to help businesses have not been attacked in the law suit. Moreover, INA § 274A(h)(3)(B) provides authority to the Executive to grant employment authorization. Even if such authority is implied and not express, Congress has not overtly prohibited its exertion but displayed a passive acquiescence that reinforces its constitutional legitimacy. Operating in Justice Jackson’s “twilight zone,” such constructive ambiguity creates the opportunity for reform through executive initiative. In terms of employment authorization issuance, Congress has rarely spoken on this except via INA § 274A(h)(3)(B), so that many instances of employment authorization issuance are purely an act of executive discretion justified by that one statutory provision. Furthermore, INA § 103(3) confers powers on the Secretary of Homeland Security to “establish such regulations, prescribe such forms or bonds, reports, entries and other papers; issue such instructions; and perform such other acts as he deems necessary for carrying out his authority under the provisions of this Act.”

We reproduce the very penetrating and insightful comments of our esteemed colleague Jose R. Perez, who is a partner at Foster: 

It’s my hope that Federal Judge Andy Hanen in Brownsville, TX, will do the right thing and dismiss this lawsuit based on: 

·   #1: Lack of subject matter jurisdiction since the alleged cause of action is a ‘political question’ or a dogfight between the executive & legislative branches as there is no case or controversy for an Article III Court to decide;

·         #2: The plaintiffs lack ‘standing’ since the states have NOT suffered a palpable injury suffered and the ‘alleged injury’ is baseless and at best highly speculative since no undocumented alien has benefited from the executive actions of November 20, 2014; and

·         #3: Once implemented, the executive actions do NOT circumvent Congress or usurp our Constitution since President Obama has the executive authority under Article II of the U.S. Constitution and the statutory authority under the INA to grant deferred action based on law enforcement priorities as an act of prosecutorial discretion. This is an presidents have done so. [ My family and I came to the U.S. as ‘parolees’ based on President Johnson’s exercise of discretion that allowed approx. 1 Million Cubans to be paroled and to eventually benefit from the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, a very open-ended and most favorable statute.] 

We wish to double down on these sage comments concerning lack of state standing to bring this lawsuit for they are its Achilles heel.  This is not a case where a federal agency like the Environmental Protection Agency has declined a request by an affected state actor to regulate the emission of toxic greenhouse gas emissions whose presence in our air and water present a clear and present danger of environmental catastrophe.. For this reason, the holding by the Supreme Court that the State of Massachusetts did have requisite Article III standing to sue the EPA is fundamentally inapposite both in logic and law. Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 549 U.S. 497 (2007). Undocumented immigrants who work long hours at low pay doing the hard and dirty jobs on which we all depend but are loath to perform are not the cause or harbinger of global warming. Whatever grievances Texas and her sister states have , the proper forum for their expression and resolution in our system of governance is the Congress not the courts.  See Lajan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 576 (1992)..

Courts are loath to review any non-enforcement decisions taken by federal authorities. See,e.g., Lincoln v. Vigil, 508 U.S. 182, 191-92 (1993). Arizona v. United States, 132 S.Ct. 2492, 2499 (2012),   articulated the true reason why: “[a] principal feature of the removal system is the broad discretion exercised by immigration officials…Federal officials, as an initial matter, must decide whether it makes sense to pursue removal at all…” The decision by President to order ICE to focus its enforcement activities on designated priorities is a policy judgment which the courts have neither the time nor inclination to second guess: 

This Court has recognized on several occasions over many years that an agency’s decision not to prosecute or enforce, whether through civil or criminal process, is a decision generally committed to an agency’s absolute discretion. See United States v. Batchelder, 442 U. S. 114, 123-124 (1979); United States v. Nixon, 418 U. S. 683, 693 (1974); Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171, 182 (1967); Confiscation Cases, 7 Wall. 454 (1869). This recognition of the existence of discretion is attributable in no small part to the general unsuitability for judicial review of agency decisions to refuse enforcement. 

Heckler v. Chaney, 470  U.S. 821, 8311 (1985) 

The Constitution neither allows nor encourages any of the state litigants in this extra-constitutional litigation to micromanage the enforcement or implementation of current immigration law or regulation. That is up to the President and those federal agencies to whom he delegates his authority: “An agency has broad discretion to choose how best to marshal its limited resources and personnel to carry out its delegated responsibilities.” Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, 467 U.S. 837, 842-845 (1984). Under the oft-quoted Chevron doctrine, federal courts will pay deference to the regulatory interpretation of the agency charged with executing the laws of the United States when there is ambiguity in the statute. The courts will intrude only when the agency’s interpretation is manifestly irrational or clearly erroneous. Similarly,  the Supreme Court in Nat’l Cable & Telecomm. Ass’n v. Brand X Internet Servs., 545 US 967 (2005),while affirming Chevron, held that, if there is an ambiguous statute requiring agency deference under Chevron, the agency’s understanding will also trump a judicial exegesis of the same statute.  There is simply no case or controversy here for the federal courts to settle. None of these Plaintiffs identify or present  such a “ personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to assure the concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon which the court so largely depends for illumination.” Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 204 (1962). Where is their standing then one wonders? In all of the hyperbolic protestations that suffuse this complaint, where rhetoric often masquerades as reality,  one looks in vain for any allegation or evidence that any of the state complainants can “ show that it has suffered a concrete and particularized injury that is fairly traceable to thte defendant and that a favorable decision will likely redress that injury.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-561 (1992). 

Still, one should not be too sanguine about Judge Hanen doing the right thing who will hear this case in the United District Court for the Southern district of Texas,   Division. In US v. Nava-Martinez, a case that involved a human trafficker who sought to smuggle an El Salvadorian girl into the United States, Judge Hanen chastised the DHS for completing the crime by delivering the minor to the custody of the parent,  even though the DHS was obliged to unify the child under the 1997 Flores v. Reno, CV-85-4544-RJK, settlement agreement. Judge Hanen equated this policy to “taking illegal drugs or weapons that it had seized from smugglers and delivering them to the criminals who initially solicited their illegal importation/exportation.” Id. at 10. The plaintiffs have cleverly cited Nava-Martinezin their complaint as an example of DHS laxity encouraging illegal migrants, and also disingenuously conflated the surge of unaccompanied minors this summer with the President’s previous DACA program, even though it has been well documented that these children may have come to the US for other legitimate reasons, such as fleeing horrific gang persecution in countries such as Honduras, el Salvador and Guatemala. . A December 5, 2014 NY Times article confirms this: 

At the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago, lawyers interviewed 3,956 migrant children this year. Lisa Koop, associate director of legal services there, said the number of children who had heard of the 2012 program was “in the single digits.”

“It is clear that DACA was not a driving force behind the migration,” Ms. Koop said. “What we heard time and again was that violence in Central America and the need for safe haven was what prompted these children to undertake the journey north.” 

Even if Judge Hanen does not rule the way we think he should, it is hoped that the Fifth Circuit will swiftly reverse him. Indeed, the Fifth Circuit has recently recognized the supremacy of federal immigration law over state law as well as federal discretion in enforcing immigration law. In Villas at Parkside Partners v. Farmers Branch, 726 F.3d 524 (5th Cir. 2013), the Fifth Circuit struck down a local housing ordinance on preemption grounds because it conflicted with federal law regarding the ability of aliens not lawfully present in the United States to remain in the US. The Fifth Circuit also noted that the federal government could exercise discretion: 

Whereas the Supreme Court has made clear that there are “significant complexities involved in [making] . . . the determination whether a person is removable,” and the decision is “entrusted to the discretion of the Federal Government,” Arizona, 132 S. Ct. at 2506; see also Plyler, 457 U.S. at 236 (Blackmun, J., concurring) (“[T]he structure of the immigration statutes makes it impossible for the State to determine which aliens are entitled to residence, and which eventually will be deported.”), the Ordinance allows state courts to assess the legality of a non-citizen’s presence absent a “preclusive” federal determination, opening the door to conflicting state and federal rulings on the question.  

The creation of law by federal agencies in the implementation of executive initiative has become the norm rather than the exception in our system of governance , if for no other reason than that the sheer multiplicity of issues, as well as their dense complexity, defy traditional compromise or consensus which are the very hallmarks of Congressional deliberation. Despite the assertion in Article I of the Constitution that “ All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States,” it is far from novel to acknowledge as we must that independent federal regulatory agencies also exercise legislative powers. As Justice White noted in his dissent in INS v Chadha,462 U.S. 919, 947 (1983) (White,J., dissenting) after reviewing prior cases upholding broad delegations of legislative power:

These cases establish that by virtue of congressional delegation, legislative power can be exercised by independent agencies and Executive departments without passage of new legislation. For some time, the sheer amount of law- the substantive rules that regulate private conduct and direct the operation of government- made by the agencies has far outnumbered the lawmaking engaged in by Congress through the traditional process. There is no question that agency rulemaking is lawmaking in any functional or realistic sense of the term.

Immigration has historically been linked to foreign policy. Indeed, a core reason for the plenary federal power over immigration is precisely because it implicates real and genuine foreign policy concerns. This is another reason why the Executive enjoys wide, though not unchecked, discretion to effect changes in immigration procedures through sua sponte regulation. Indeed, it is perhaps only a modest exaggeration to maintain that the INA could not be administered in any other way.  The President’s executive action does not displace Congress as the primary architect of federal immigration policy but rather is in aid of the legislative function and, as such, is in harmony with the constitutional injunction to diversify authority. The President is not divorced from lawmaking; that is the very reason why the Framers provided an executive veto power. If the President had no role in lawmaking, why give such a weapon to limit congressional prerogative? Once we accept the fact that the Executive is a junior partner in lawmaking, then the President’s executive actions become a strong but unremarkable expression of this well-settled constitutional concept. To suggest that the President is powerless to act simply because only Congress can modify the INA is to isolate one co-equal branch of our national government from another beyond what the Constitution suggests or requires. This is not what the Framers had in mind:

Yet it is also clear from the provisions of the Constitution itself, and from the Federalist Papers, that the Constitution by no means contemplates total separation of each of these three essential branches of government…The mean who met in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 were practical statesmen, experienced in politics, who viewed the principle of separation of powers as a vital check against tyranny. But they likewise saw that a hermetic sealing off of the three branches of Government from one another would preclude the establishment of a Nation capable of governing itself effectively.

Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 121 (1976)

Not only is it appropriate for the President to direct the formulation of immigration policy on technical issues of surpassing importance, this is the way it must be; this is what the Constitution expects. The decision by President Obama to do now what he had been reluctant or unwilling to do earlier suggests not a reversal of position or a grab for imperial power but  a willingness to change, to grow, to embrace solutions that meet the exigencies of an ever-changing challenge stubbornly resistant to what has been tried before and failed. We are reminded of what President Lincoln wrote to Albert G. Hodges on April 4, 1864 : “I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.” In  perhaps the most famous judicial exposition of the need for pragmatic presidential initiative, we end our advocacy in confident reliance upon the still cogent observations of Chief Justice John Marshall in McCulloch v. Maryland:

To have prescribed the means by which government should, in all future time, execute its powers, would have been to change, entirely, the character of the instrument, and give it the properties of a legal code. It would have been an unwise attempt to provide, by immutable rules, for exigencies which, if foreseen at all, must have been seen dimly, and which can be best provided for as they occur 

17 U. S. 316 (1819) 

The President’s proposals do nothing to inhibit or prevent Congress from enacting amendments to the INA. He has not attempted to supplant Congress when it comes to the exercise of the legislative function over which in alone enjoys plenary power.  President Obama has acted solely in furtherance of what the Congress has already done to give America the immigration policy that it needs and deserves, one that is more effective and adaptable to the exigencies of the moment so that both the nation and the immigrants who have sacrificed all to write the next great chapter in the American story can benefit in full measure.

(Guest author Gary Endelman is Senior Counsel at Foster)