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Court of Appeals Rejects White House Emergency Request to Lift Injunction on Executive Amnesty

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The 5th Circuit of the Federal Court of Appeals rejected an emergency request by the Obama administration to lift an injunction on President Obama’s plan to grant amnesty and work permits to millions of illegal aliens. The temporary injunction was put in place after 26 states sued the Obama administration alleging the plan is unconstitutional.

In a 2-1 ruling, 5th Circuit judges Jerry Smith and Jennifer Walker Elrod denied the emergency stay, saying in an opinion written by Smith, that the federal government lawyers are unlikely to succeed on the merits of that appeal. Judge Stephen Higginson dissented.

“The public interest favors maintenance of the injunction,” the judges wrote in the majority opinion.

Texas District Court Judge Andrew Hanen granted the plaintiffs’ temporary injunction request back in February but the Administration sought an emergency stay in the 5th Circuit. In today’s ruling, the court denied the emergency stay request but did not rule on the legality of Judge Hanen’s rationale for issuing the injunction. A different panel within the court should hear arguments on the latter issue in July. The Obama administration can either wait to make its case before the separate panel or appeal the emergency stay ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Along with Texas, the states seeking to block Obama’s action are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Read the full opinion or a related article in Politico.

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