Texas Federal Court Orders United States to Explain Possible Violation of Immigration Injunction

09 Mar, 2015 by Cassy Fiano

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Obama’s executive action allowing amnesty for the millions of law-breaking illegal immigrants was halted by an injunction from a Texas court. But now, the Obama administration may be in trouble, as they may have violated that injunction.

The Texas federal court that issued a temporary injunction halting Obama’s immigration executive action has just ordered the U.S. government to respond to allegations by the plaintiff States that the U.S. misrepresented to the Court the status of granting deportation waivers, and may thereby be in violation of the court’s temporary injunction.

As explained by John Hinderaker at Power Line, the issue revolves around representations the government made to the Judge, representations called into question by an unexpected “advisory” filed by the U.S. government:

Since Judge Hanen’s order was issued, it has come to light that by the date of the order, the Obama administration had already granted expanded DACA benefits (three years rather than two years) to approximately 100,000 illegal aliens. The Department of Justice disclosed this fact to Judge Hanen in a surprise filing:

In a “Defendants’ Advisory” filed with Hanen’s court late Tuesday, the Justice Department notified the judge that it has already implemented significant parts of the Expanded DACA program, and indeed that it has already granted expanded DACA protections and work permits to “approximately 100,000″ people.

The government’s lawyers essentially admitted that they were disclosing this fact because it was contrary to what they had previously told the court. That has led to a motion by the State of Texas to be allowed to conduct discovery to find out what happened. Here is Texas’s brief in support of that motion.

The Court just ruled this afternoon (Order at bottom of post) that it would not consider the U.S. motion to stay the temporary injunction until a hearing on the possible violations and misrepresentations on March 19.

Unless vacated on an emergency basis by the 5th Circuit, that means the immigration executive action remains on hold for at least another 10 days.

What a shocker — the Obama administration may have hid information and ignored an injunction from a federal court! Oh, wait… no, that actually sounds perfectly in character for this joke of an administration.