November 3, 2017
WASHINGTON – The Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in California federal district court challenging the latest attempt by Janet Napolitano, former Homeland Security Secretary and now President of the University of California, to revive the DACA amnesty after President Trump put a stake in its heart in September.
The IRLI amicus brief provides a concise survey of decades of administrative law holding that invalid unconstitutional actions like DACA cannot be reinstated by federal courts on technical grounds.
The UC-Napolitano lawsuit is one of several coordinated actions nationwide claiming that President Trump has no authority to end the DACA amnesty program using his “pen and phone” powers. Ironically, Napolitano and former President Obama had launched the 2012 amnesty using not only “pen and phone” orders, but also the novel claim that the President could let any alien remain in the United States, without any limitation. Then-Secretary Napolitano wrote that the President had “prosecutorial discretion” that nullifies the restrictions of the large and complex U.S. immigration code.
“In 2012 Napolitano swore to Congress that DACA ‘confers no substantive right, immigration status or pathway to citizenship…’ except apparently when it does,” observed IRLI Director of Litigation Chris Hajec. “If she was right in her protestations, she’s wrong now to claim the same agency that created this program can’t rescind it.”
Defending her cynical interference on behalf of illegal aliens, Napolitano wrote this week in the Los Angeles Times that the nearly three million eligible for her DACA amnesty are “in all ways except one, Americans” and that it “harms our country from a legal and moral perspective” to “treat them no differently than a recent adult border crosser.” In fact, IRLI has used government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act to show that most DACA designees are adults from Mexico who crossed the southern border with the help of the same cartels that fuel the heroin and opioid crisis.
The case is Regents of California and Janet Napolitano v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Elaine Duke, No. 3:17-cv-05211-WHA (Northern District of California).
For additional information, contact: Brian Lonergan • 202-232-5590 • [email protected]
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