According to the U.S. Sing Tao Daily, following President Obama’s speech on immigration reform executive orders, opposition parties had proposed to block it through legal means. Now, this courtroom battle has begun, and after two related lawsuits were formally submitted, some immigration organizations recently joined forces to submit a “brief” to the court, rebutting the plaintiffs' arguments and supporting Obama’s immigration reform executive orders.
Since Obama’s immigration speech, the opposition has successively submitted lawsuits to the court. The first shot was fired by the so-called "toughest sheriff in America" from Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Arpaio, although this lawsuit was rejected. The second lawsuit was submitted by Texas in collaboration with 24 other states, and this lawsuit is set to be heard on January 9 in the federal court for the Southern District of Texas.
These lawsuits aim to ultimately stop Obama’s executive order and seek a court order to temporarily freeze the implementation of the executive order while the case is being heard. Such lawsuits often take years, and if the court issues such an order, it will mean that the implementation of Obama’s immigration reform executive order will be delayed indefinitely.
Including the American Immigration Alliance, the National Immigration Law Center, and other 6 influential immigration organizations, they jointly submitted a brief to the federal court for the Southern District of Texas, urging the court not to issue an order to freeze the implementation of the executive order.
The brief pointed out that the plaintiffs' claims that the presidential executive order equates to granting status to all undocumented individuals, rendering the Department of Homeland Security—which originally exercised decision-making power in immigration applications—completely irrelevant, and that it would also encourage more undocumented immigrants to flood into the United States, are entirely unfounded.
