The Patriot Post® · Judge Rebukes Obama's Immigration Deception

The executive amnesty ordered by Barack Obama last November has been eclipsed in the headlines by his disastrous dealings with Iran. But the story isn’t over.

The amnesty would grant three-year stays of deportation, Social Security numbers and work permits to some illegal aliens, but in February U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen declared that Obama exceeded his authority and blocked the amnesty.

After further deliberation, Hanen this week declared his injunction will remain in place in part because Obama’s lawyers misled the court. The administration revealed two weeks after Hanen’s first ruling that it had already granted more than 100,000 work permits to illegals before the court issued its injunction, and the judge wasn’t too happy. “Whether by ignorance, omission, purposeful misdirection, or because they were misled by their clients,” Hanen wrote, “the attorneys for the Government misrepresented the facts.”

“Even worse,” he added [emphasis in the original], the government’s lawyers “urged this Court to rule before disclosing that the Government had already issued 108,081 three-year renewals under the 2014 DACA amendments despite their statements to the contrary.”

“Thus,” he concluded, “even under the most charitable interpretation of these circumstances, and based solely upon what counsel for the Government told the Court, the Government knew its representations had created ‘confusion,’ but kept quiet about it for two weeks while simultaneously pressing this Court to rule on the merits of its motion.”

So incensed was Hanen at this deception that he considered dismissing the case with prejudice, but opted instead for the greater good of settling the constitutional matters at hand through further court hearings. “Under different circumstances,” he wrote, “this Court might very well [consider striking the Government’s pleadings]. The Court, however, finds that the issues at stake here have national significance and deserve to be fully considered on the merits by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and, in all probability, the Supreme Court of the United States.”

Next week, the Fifth Circuit Court will hear oral arguments in the case. Clearly, Obama has flouted Rule of Law with his smoke and mirrors immigration strategy, and then misled Congress, the courts and the people to keep it in place. So it certainly bears watching whether the Fifth Circuit takes into account the administration’s deliberate deception.

In related immigration news, Obama’s policies have real world consequences. Word of Obama’s executive amnesty (notwithstanding the nuances of court battles) has surely made the rounds south of the border. “The second wave of unaccompanied illegal immigrant children has begun, with more than 3,000 of them surging across the Mexican border into the U.S. last month — the highest rate since the peak of last summer’s crisis and a warning that another rough season could be ahead,” The Washington Times reports. “Authorities report having captured 15,647 children traveling without parents who tried to jump the border in the first six months of the fiscal year.”

While those numbers are down a bit from last year’s record surge, 2015 is still on pace to be the second-biggest year on record.

Immigration officials say both violence in Central America and warmer weather are to blame for the influx, and there’s no doubt that’s at least partly true. But again, when the president of the United States issues an executive amnesty, it’s a virtual welcome mat for any who might come illegally — especially children, given Obama’s favorable treatment of them. Specifically, the administration ordered non-Mexican children to be released pending deportation proceedings. Those children rarely show up for hearings and end up staying in the U.S.

Obama himself once said, “I am not a dictator. I’m the president. … If in fact I could solve all these problems without passing laws in Congress then I would do so. … I’m not the emperor of the United States. My job is to execute laws that are passed.” We have no further witnesses, your honor.