IRLI Joins Half the States in the Union in their Fight against the Obama Administration’s Executive

January 8, 2015

Bringing authority over immigration back to Congress

January 7, 2015

(Washington, D.C.) – The Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) has joined twenty-five state governments by filing a friend-of-the-court brief in their challenge against the Obama Administration’s latest unconstitutional and unlawful executive action on mass amnesty. In the case of Texas v. US (Civil Action No. 14-254), Plaintiff States seek injunctive relief from the Southern District Court of Texas, which, if granted, will begin to return the authority over immigration policy back to Congress and restore the separation of powers under our nation’s constitution.

In their supplemental brief filed today, IRLI provides a clear and concise summary of the comprehensive legal framework which Congress put in place precisely to control Executive Branch policymaking in the area of immigration. Further, IRLI’s brief shows that Congress’s statutory framework was specifically set-up to restrict and roll back previous grants of Executive amnesty which just like Obama’s latest unilateral action had been pushed through under the pretext of prosecutorial discretion.

Dale Wilcox, Executive Director of IRLI, commented, “Obama’s Office of Legal Counsel has stated that ‘Congress has long been aware of the practice of granting categorical deferred action and it has never acted to disapprove or limit the practice.’ In our brief filed today, we show that this statement is 100 percent false.” Wilcox continued, “By granting an injunction, the Court will end the Executive’s abuse of our immigration laws, just like Congress had tried to do by implementing a comprehensive framework for immigration control in the Immigration and Nationality Act.”

The friend-of-the-court brief can be found here.