The Texas judge who has temporarily blocked President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty is delaying his final decision so he can investigate how the administration hid the award of three-year amnesties to 100,000 illegal immigrants.
“Due to the seriousness of the matters discussed therein, the Court will not rule on any other pending motions until it is clear that these matters, if true, do not impact the pending matters or any rulings previously made by this Court,” U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen wrote in a Monday decision.
Hanen’s decision is generating much opposition from Obama and his allies, partly because he is the only legal obstacle to Obama’s November amnesty.
On March 3, top Republican congressional leaders allied with Democrats to overcome majority GOP opposition and pass a 2015 budget bill that didn’t block funding for Obama’s amnesty.
The new courtroom delay for the amnesty follows a March 5 complaint from 26 governors and attorneys general, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
“The Obama Administration appears to have already been issuing expanded work permits, in direct contradiction to what they told a federal judge previously in this litigation,” Paxton said in a plea describing his legal request.
The delay postpones the judge’s final decision on the legality of Obama’s November amnesty well past March 19.
That delay also delays the eventual review and decision by appeals court judges.
The state lawsuit is expected to be decided by the Supreme Court in 2016.
That lengthy process gives the GOP base another chance to block amnesty funding during the fall budget debates.
So far, GOP leaders have not said if they will try to block amnesty funding in the fall.
On Feb. 16, Hanen temporarily froze Obama’s two-part amnesty, after concluding it likely violated the federal government’s rule-making process.
The two-part amnesty provide residency, work permits, tax rebates and membership in the Social Security system to at least four million illegals who have children have citizenship or legal residency. It would also provide work-permits to roughly 1 million younger illegals who were brought into the United States by their parents, even though millions of Americans are unemployed, and Americans’ wages have been flat since 2000.
But before the judge froze the amnesty, Obama’s deputies had concealed their award of thee-year work permits to 100,000 younger illegals.
In his March 9 announcement, Hanen directed administration lawyers to appear in his courtroom March 19 to explain the rushed award of work-permits to 100,000 illegals. “A hearing on the States’ Motion is set for March 19, 2015 at 1:30 p.m.,” the judge declared Monday.
“In addition to being prepared to respond to the States’ Motion, the Defendants shall be prepared to fully explain to this Court all of the matters addressed in and circumstances surrounding the Defendants’ Advisory filed on March 3, 2015,” the judge directed.