Federal Judge: Barack Obama's Immigration Move Unconstitutional

CNN.com:

A federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled Tuesday that President Barack Obama's move to halt deportations for millions of undocumented immigrants violates the Constitution -- but it's not clear that the ruling will have any immediate impact.

Pittsburgh-based U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab, a George W. Bush appointee, became the first judge to rule on the legality of Obama's executive overhaul of immigration rules when he issued his unusual opinion in a criminal case.

The Justice Department shot back that the judge was "flatly wrong" and his ruling wouldn't halt the implementation of Obama's immigration policies.

The decision -- which came in a criminal case against Honduran immigrant Elionardo Juarez-Escobar, who'd been deported before, returned to the United States and faced charges of unlawful re-entry after a drunk driving arrest -- was unexpected, and is unrelated to the legal challenge dozens of states have launched against Obama's move.

Prosecutors in the case argued that Obama's immigration policies were only meant to apply to civil proceedings, and don't have any impact on criminal proceedings like what Juarez-Escobar faced.

Still, Schwab said in his 38-page ruling that Juarez-Escobar could have benefited under Obama's action to halt deportations for some undocumented immigrants.

Obama's action violates the Constitution's separation of powers and its "take care clause," Schwab said.

He wrote that Obama's action "goes beyond prosecutorial discretion because: (a) it provides for a systematic and rigid process by which a broad group of individuals will be treated differently than others based upon arbitrary classifications, rather than case-by-case examination; and (b) it allows undocumented immigrants, who fall within these broad categories, to obtain substantive rights."

The judge also quoted several of Obama's statements, asserting that, prior to issuing his executive action in November, the President personally considered such a move beyond his authority.

Schwab said Juarez-Escobar didn't fall within any of the priority categories Obama identified for deportation, so it's not clear that removing him from the country would be a priority -- potentially blurring the lines between civil and criminal proceedings.

The Justice Department blasted the opinion, with a spokesperson saying it was "unfounded and the court had no basis to issue such an order."

"No party in the case challenged the constitutionality of the immigration-related executive actions and the department's filing made it clear that the executive actions did not apply to the criminal matter before the court," the spokesperson said. "Moreover, the court's analysis of the legality of the executive actions is flatly wrong. We will respond to the court's decision at the appropriate time."

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Supreme Court Unanimously Rejects Obama Recess Appointments

HotAir.com:

The Supreme Court dropped a huge bomb on the Obama administration, unanimously rebuking the President for arrogating to himself the determination of when Congress is in session for the purpose of making recess appointments. According to reports on the opinion, the court may have taken a middle path on what a recess actually is, toning down one appellate court ruling that only allowed for recess appointments between formal sessions:

The US Supreme Court today limited a president’s power to make recess appointments when the White House and the Senate are controlled by opposite parties, scaling back a presidential authority as old as the republic.

The case arose from a political dispute between President Obama and Senate Republicans, who claimed he had no authority to put three people on the National Labor Relations Board in January 2012 when the Senate was out of town.

He used a president’s power, granted by the Constitution, to “fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate.” But the Republicans said the Senate was not in recess at the time the appointments were made, because every three days a senator went into the chamber, gaveled it to order, and then immediately called a recess.

By a unanimous vote, the Supreme Court agreed that the Senate was not in recess, holding that it’s up to both houses of Congress to define when they’re in session or in recess. As a result of the decision, the Senate can frustrate a president’s ability to make recess appointments simply by holding periodic pro forma sessions, a tactic used in recent years by both political parties.

According to NBC’s Pete Williams, the opinion provides a timeframe for Congress and the White House to follow in the future:

That will certainly make it easier to play keep-away from the President. A minority on the court wanted to limit the recess power to strictly the period between sessions, as did one appellate court, but in the end a 5-4 majority decided to allow for a looser interpretation of “recess.” Certainly, if Congress wants to stop recess appointments from being made, it will be fairly easy to gavel into session every nine days.

The question will now be what happens to the NLRB rulings during the period when recess appointments provided a quorum. The answer appears to be that they can be successfully challenged and set aside. That was the context of the challenge to the recess appointments in the first place — lawsuits against regulation created in that period that alleged they were illegitimate. This ruling means that the Supreme Court 
unanimously agrees on that point, a severe rebuke to the “constitutional scholar” President and his abuse of power. More practically, though, the recent appointments to the NLRB can reconstitute that regulation if they wish, so the victory may be short lived for the plaintiffs.

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