In another well intentioned but presumably fruitless effort to rein in the executive branch, 17 states have teamed up to challenge the legality of the president’s most recent and sweeping executive order. The Chicago Tribune reports:
A coalition of 17 U.S. states sued the Obama administration on Wednesday saying it acted illegally by issuing an executive order to ease the threat of deportation for millions of immigrants who are in the country without the proper documents.The case being led by Texas and filed at the Federal Court in the Southern District of Texas said the executive order announced by Obama last month violated constitutional limits on presidential powers. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican and the Texas governor-elect, said the lawsuit is not asking for monetary damages but is seeking to have the order declared illegal.
The specifics of the lawsuit are as follows:
The lawsuit raises three objections: that Obama violated the "Take Care Clause" of the U.S. Constitution that limits the scope of presidential power; that the federal government violated rulemaking procedures; and that the order will "exacerbate the humanitarian crisis along the southern border, which will affect increased state investment in law enforcement, health care and education."Wednesday's announcement marks the 31st time the Texas attorney general has brought action against the federal government since Obama took office in 2009. The only other high-profile lawsuit against the immigration action has come on behalf of Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
For its part, the White House has deflected lingering criticisms that amnestying some four to five million illegal residents is outside the boundaries of the law, a legal interpretation the president’s own attorney general seems to fully support.
"This is not a permanent solution," Secretary Jeh Johnson declared in a congressional hearing earlier this week. "But it is in our existing legal authority to issue."
Even so, that doesn’t necessarily mean the public is bursting with joy about the president's decision to circumvent Congress in order to "fix" our broken immigration system. No sir:
By a seven percent margin, more Americans oppose the president’s executive amnesty than support it, according to a very recent YouGov public opinion poll. Consequently, perhaps that’s why so many states are already on board and eager to take legal action against him:
The federal lawsuit involves the following states: Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
Seventeen states and counting...