Looks like the Republicans got the federal judge they wanted to block President Obama’s immigration programs announced last November, and now begins the GOP plan to simply run out the clock by tying the executive orders up in court for the next two years. Of course, real peoples’ lives are at stake here. Vox’s Dara Lind:
Here’s what this means: Until this ruling is reversed or a different ruling comes down in the future, the federal government isn’t allowed to do anything to implement either of the new programs President Obama announced in November to protect unauthorized immigrants from deportation.
Between the two programs, millions of immigrants were supposed to be eligible for deferred action (three years of protection from deportation) and work permits. Neither of those programs had actually started accepting applications yet, although one was supposed to start on Wednesday. Now they won’t be able to start until further notice.
Immigrants who are older than 30 but who came to the US as children or teenagers (and meet other requirements) were supposed to be able to apply for deferred action starting on February 18, an expansion of the existing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Now they’ll have to wait. That’s about 230,000 immigrants who’ll remain vulnerable to deportation.
There are also the 3.7 million unauthorized immigrants who are parents of US citizens or permanent residents who’d benefit from another program: Deferred Action for Parents of Americans. Applications were supposed to open this spring, but the government still hasn’t put out the official application requirements and fee; it won’t be able to finalize that, or announce it, under this ruling.
So yes, about 4 million people are directly affected by this, it’s going to head to the Fifth Circuit, and it will probably be months before they get through with it. And surely the states suing the White House over immigration actions are going to want a SCOTUS injunction/appeal either way, which would most likely lead to a Supreme Court battle next year. Even if the injunction is lifted, the damage from the delay will be real:
When the administration created the first deferred-action program in 2012, for young unauthorized immigrants, they discovered the success of the program relied on people signing up — and on the ground, organizers learned that finding eligible immigrants and getting them to apply was the hardest part. Now, community groups are trying to educate a much larger, more diffuse immigrant population about the new deferred-action programs, and persuade them that it’s safe to apply. But news and misinformation about the lawsuit is spreading confusion and fear among the very people these groups are trying to reach.
Organizers are worried about a “chilling effect”: by the time applications do open for deferred action, immigrants will have been intimidated out of applying, because they won’t believe the program is safe or permanent.
Which of course is the entire point.
Baud
Worth mentioning that this wouldn’t be a blip on the radar with a Democratic Congress. Same with the current Obamacare case in the Supreme Court.
Patricia Kayden
Latino (and other immigrant) voters need to punish Republicans for this every chance they get.
Gindy51
So much for any minority outreach from the GOP.
Tommy
I will say what I always say ….
My family came here from Scotland in 1884. In that single generation we did amazing things, including holding elected office as a judge.
Pretty sure my family didn’t have any papers ….
You want to come live here, heck live here and work already I welcome you open arms.
Come on in. I want to give you a hug!
The Ancient Randonneur
The GOP Latino outreach initiative is going just as planned. Now they can get back to “voter integrity” and keeping all the women folk pure.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
Applied for a new job at the hospital 11 days ago, interviewed Friday, and was offered the job yesterday.
It’s a pay cut, with MUCH better hours, much less stress, and hopefully, fewer fuckwits, as it is a smaller, more highly educated group.
I think I will accept today, pending a few housekeeping questions re start date, previously scheduled vacations, etc.
ETA: missed the open thread. Boo.
Botsplainer
Anybody know the percentages of Republicans of Hispanic heritage in Texas, Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico? That’s where the peel-off is.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Patricia Kayden: Of course that would require the Democratic Party to grab hold of their (insert body part here) and bring this up at every opportunity, I think Univision or Telemundo has more viewers.
Botsplainer
I genuinely enjoy hearing people with Italian and Irish names bitch about immigrants while demanding the new entrants “follow the rules”.
Of course, their ancestors arrived in waves during the era of unrestricted immigration.
As for “the rules”, THOSE are the current problem, and the Grumpy Old Party won’t address them.
Bobby B.
Here’s a lame-duck suggestion: boots on the ground in Dallas and Houston. The kind with tanks.
Keith G
This will be good news for
John McCainHillary Clinton.I wish that the Democrats would immediately use this information to spearhead voter registration (and document accumulation) drives. We need these voters now (for local elections) as well as in 2016.
Davis X. Machina
These immigrants are already what the GOP aims for all of us to become — cowed, compliant, contingently employed.
Botsplainer
@Bobby B.:
I was going to say Ft Worth, Plano, Amarillo and Lubbock.
Concentrate the shells on Cracker Barrels, Denny’s, gun shops, shooting ranges and megachurches…
Tommy
@Botsplainer: My last name is “Young.” I live in a town where I have to explain even in 2015 my last name is “Young” with a “Y” and not “J.” Young not Jung. Germans. I don’t mind but when I note this to other people, like “hey lets in some Hispanics” they are often confused by the concept. They don’t seem to get it.
HinTN
@Davis X. Machina: The new CCC program.
C.V. Danes
Can you blame them? If I were an undocumented person, I absolutely would not make myself known until these issues are worked out.
rikyrah
This is who they are Zandar.
This is who they are.
Spinwheel
Zandar is a Supreme Court expert now.
LOL.
Stick with your true area of expertise, blaming white people while carting around that chip on your shoulder.
Keith G
@Botsplainer: Texas Hispanics are just under 39% of the state’s population. In Texas , the quick stat of voting is 2 to 1* in favor of the Dems.
The problem is turn out. Even before aggressive suppression, Hispanic registration and turnout was abysmally low.
*I imagine that 2 to 1 could quickly change to 3 to 1 if more eligible citizens would register and if more registered “could-be” voters actually voted.
Here is a map showing what could be the geographic-based power of Texas’ Hispanics if they took full advantage of their voting rights.
boatboy_srq
@Gindy51: Au contraire. Plenty of outreach here – with a cudgel. And dollars to doughnuts they’ll be surprised how many Asians, South Asians and other internationals (doing mighty fine work, and a lot of it for the public-sector contractors the GOTea is convinced are saving The Republic) will get caught up in this. And is it just me, or wouldn’t you want a bigger DHS if you wanted immediate and irrevocable deportation of all illeeeyguls? Instead we’re getting less funding, and no funding at all unless Obama goes along and punishes Brown People after all.
I can’t help thinking that letting the GOTea defund DHS entirely wouldn’t be such a bad thing. It lets the administration reduce bureaucracy (by shutting down one of Shrub’s crowning achievements, so win/win there), it gives immigrants all the amnesty they can eat (no enforcement equals no deportation), and it flummoxes the GOTea by defunding all the ethnic cleansing they want to enact.
Chyron HR
@Spinwheel:
Hey, Cuckwheel. Still blaming Zandar for your inability to satisfy your wife?
Gene108
I think Obama should demand Congress authorize the money needed to deport the 10 million illegals within a year, which would not only include more ICE personnel but probably legal counsel to sort through all the cases and places to keep illegals while they await deportation.
To make the program budget neutral he should offer increased fees on industries that have high rates of using illegal immigrants, such as agriculture, meet packing, etc and for industries that use the products of these industries, such as food companies that use corn syrup in their products.
It would be interesting to watch Republicans appease a base that wants everyone deported, while opposing everything Obama does.
Ruckus
@Chyron HR:
Someone would marry that? Or at the very least stay married to it?
bk
@Spinwheel: SHUT UP ALREADY.
Yatsuno
@Spinwheel: Thus proving there are few things sadder than a bitter white guy…
Gene108
@Keith G:
I think it costs money to sustain voter outreach efforts and there are no billionaire sugar-daddies bankrolling these efforts, unlike voter suppression efforts that are well funded by rich assholes.
ACORN had success in registering would-be Democratic voters, amongst the poor, and they got destroyed for it.
boatboy_srq
@Gene108: I’m waiting for Obama to describe the GOTea effort as “de facto amnesty for all immigrants” – because defunding DHS would achieve exactly that. They want instant deportation for all “illegals” – and to prove it they’re threating not to pay for any of it. If they want all or nothing, give them nothing – and let them explain to their constituents why their temper tantrum allowed millions to stay in the US because they refused to pay for the enforcement mechanisms.
Belafon
@Keith G: Latino’s in Texas vote at half the rate they do in any other state. If they voted at California’s rate, Texas would have been a competitive state in 2008 and 2012.
Mike in NC
Republican MO is to fuck people over unless said people can pay them not to. Just another example of organized crime.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Well, yes, that’s the problem. It wasn’t. And everyone knew it would fold the minute it crossed the desk of a hostile judge, which was utterly inevitable.
Played for suckers. Sure hope that cynical move doesn’t come back and bite the party in the ass.
Jack the Second
@Bobby B.:
Why not the opposite? Remove all boots from Texas, ie, close all military bases, move them to California, Oregon, and Washington. Russia and China aren’t coming up through the Gulf, after all.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Wow, Zandar, your racist stalker former co-worker’s a real piece of work. Hope you’ve moved, have a restraining order and/or a good gun, because this loon’s in it for the long haul.
jonas
@Botsplainer: more important are Hispanic votes in swing states like Virginia, Ohio, and North Carolina. Repubs basically have no path to the WH w/o those states and they have growing and very significant Hispanic communities. They won’t forget this shit. Republican pollsters and campaign strategists know this — but they can’t get it through the thick skulls of the Know-Nothing idiots in the House like Steve King.
NCSteve
The basis for the injunction isn’t the president’s constitutional authority to do this but, rather, whether he needed to implement the change in policy through formal agency rule-making (publication of proposed rules in the Federal Register followed by sixty days of public comment before adoption) pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act rather than executive order. Superficially, that’s not a frivolous challenge. So at least someone put some thought into this rather than just screeching “Bekuze Keynan Mooslim Soshulist Blackity Uppity Blackity Black Usurper Constitootshun Argle Bargle Blargh!”
askew
I see zero hopes for turning out more voters in Texas anytime soon. Battleground Texas was headed up by Obama’s team in 2014 and registered an epic ton of voters who didn’t bother to show up to vote in the midterm.
Morzer
@Ruckus:
I blame Obama for the gay marriage wedge that enabled people to marry tree stumps of an unusually dumb variety.
Spinwheel
No comment on this major story of Obama’s NSA having back door access to virtually every hard drive on earth, huh.
I’m not surprised.
askew
@Spinwheel:
OMG you are bobswern. The nutjob from Dailykos. Now it all makes sense.
SFAW
@Mike in NC:
It would be interesting to see Holder start a RICO investigation focused on the RNC and Koch Industries. Wingnut heads be a-splodin’.
Frankensteinbeck
I honestly think the entire point is to defy Obama, period, in every way and with every excuse. A major part of the conservative mindset is that results don’t matter. They’re not even a thing. Doing what’s right works axiomatically, and to discuss actual results is nonsensical. If you try to do so, they look at you like you’re crazy and/or just keep ranting. As for what ‘doing what’s right’ means, that’s whatever supports their prejudices.
@jonas:
To quote @rikyrah above, this is who they are. You can’t get the party to abandon its central plank. Racism is the core of their policy, and the passion that keeps them voting at such high rates.
SFAW
@Spinwheel:
Oh, don’t you worry, honey. They don’t consider racist, head-up-the-ass stalking to be worthy of their interest, so you’re good. In a manner of speaking.
Morzer
@askew:
Does that nutjob live in Portland by any chance?
SFAW
@Frankensteinbeck:
It’s either a subset of, or corollary to, Cleek’s Law.
Absolutely.
There was an old TV commercial or perhaps it was a PSA:
“The Pessimist sees the glass as half-empty
The Optimist sees the glass as half-full.
The Right-winger wants to smash the fucking glass.”
SFAW
@Morzer:
Hey, BiP has his faults, but he’s focused (monomaniacal?) on what he sees as an injustice, not on stalking a person he hates. (At least, that’s how I read Bob, opinions may differ, etc., etc.)
Frankensteinbeck
@SFAW:
I admit, racism and raw ‘fuck everyone’ hate have become a chicken-and-the-egg motivation. You could label either as the central conservative motivation, and there’d be no way to establish which caused the other.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@NCSteve: Ed Kilgore thinks it is just friendly-judge shopping and will be a blip in the history books.
IANAL, so I dunno. I do believe, though, that if the funding levels (and staff, infrastructure, etc.) only permit processing of ~ 400k deportations a year, then screaming that the President can’t prioritize who of the 10+M gets put in the process is stupid. But so is the “secure the border first!11” screaming before the House passes a bill. How “secure” must the border be? Is 20 people a year crossing secure? What about all the people who enter legally and overstay their visas? An eleventy-dozen feet high triple-layer fence with cameras and sensors and drones isn’t going to do anything about that…
As usual, real people are being hurt by these
RepublicanTeabagger stunts. And it’ll drag out for months or years while little productive gets done.:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodinger's cat
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: That’s what the immigration lawyer I read, also says.
Morzer
@SFAW:
Romanov in Portland is stalking an entire nation for the heinous crime of being invaded by Russia – and not being abjectly grateful for it. I’d say that was pretty deranged behavior in itself – and then we get to the bizarre fixation with Nazis, conspiratorial Nazis, the Obama neocon-Nazi collaboration etc etc etc.
Spinwheel
Let’s gather round so Zandar can tell you about how Obama’s NSA is invading every PC on the planet and is no big deal.
A Democratic president would never abuse that kind of power, so it’s all good.
Or it’s all a clever Putin psi-op.
Our government would never do anything like that. We elected a black guy as president.
SFAW
@Frankensteinbeck:
I think the “fuck over everyone not like us, including those who ARE like us be we think they aren’t” sentiment has been around for awhile, it just tends to be exacerbated when times are tough, e.g., Deutschland in the 1920s and 1930s. I don’t really characterize that as racism, necessarily, but I think racism is a subset.
Having a blackity-black black colored nigra darkie in the
BlackWhite House does add the racist component to the mix, of course, which probably provided those RWMs with even more motivation to be RWMs.debbie
Glen Beck has announced he’s bringing back his chalkboard. The End must be near.
Morzer
@Spinwheel:
Try Metamucil, son. It won’t help with your mental issues, but it might ease that immense pile of shit you’ve got inside you towards a better place.
SFAW
@Spinwheel:
Neat-o. Just moved from “Stalker” to “Incoherent Stalker.”
Morzer
@SFAW:
With a gratuitous Putin fantasy as well. Now, it could all be a coinkydink… but…
SFAW
@Morzer:
It’s still a different “ethos” or whatever. And it’s not really on a par with such wisdom at “The Jews/Gays/Masons/Rothschilds control everything.” Yeah, it’s annoying, but I’ve known plenty of people who have an “excessive focus” on certain political issues, and they’re not stalkers in any way.
Morzer
I am not so sure. When everything is a colossal Nazi covert operation, it’s not hard to see the implied “Nazis control everything” meme slinking towards stalker Romanov’s piehole.
SFAW
@Morzer:
Doesn’t everyone? I mean, he is a stunning specimen of manful manly manliness who’s very masculine and manly, which is why GWB “admired” him so much, as he stared into the limpid blue of Pooty-Poot’s eyes and … uh, where was I? Oh yeah – plenty of RWMs love Putin, especially as a contrast to Obama.
SFAW
@Morzer:
OK. We’re probably not going to agree on this. But I’ll keep that part (i.e., what you just said) in mind if I read any more of his comments.
Patricia Kayden
“So yes, about 4 million people are directly affected by this”
Are Latino groups putting pressure on the GOP to support sensible immigration reform? At every Republican gathering, immigration rights supporters should be there to make a ruckus. Hold the party responsible for its grandstanding.
Bill Arnold
@Spinwheel:
The Kaspersky company has roots (don’t know how deep, this is just from bar talk from the 1990s) in Russian intelligence. So it could be a way to damage American tech companies as retaliation for the damage being done to the Russian economy by sanctions and low oil prices (the later blamed on America), and at the same time effective marketing by Kaspersky.
Hard to tell without independent evidence; is there any? I could easily believe that some small lots of hard drives were modified by the NSA for targeted purposes. Globally compromising the firmware seems riskier.
Pogonip
@Gene108: Congress would never go for that. According to Anthony Bourdain, fancy restaurants could not exist without illegal aliens. Also, if all ten million of them were deported, who would diaper the parasite class’s children, clean their houses, cut their grass? No, Congress, just like the rest of the rich folks, wants the illegals here. What they don’t want is for the voters to figure that out.
J R in WV
@Spinwheel:
I used to wonder what your problem was, but now I think I know.
You’re an asshole! What a surprise!
Never a substantial contribution, just hate spewed at a single individual… what a waste of air and space you are. Please go away now.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@askew: Haven’t been to that festering shithole since 2007 but the name “bobswern” is one that will grab my attention instantly even today. That guy was a fucking lunatic. Sure hope this isn’t the same guy – but he might well be.
Bobby Thomson
@Chyron HR: thanks Obama!
Morzer
@Bobby Thomson:
YOLO, man!
VFX Lurker
I just reenabled Tampermonkey and Troll-B-Gone to get rid of Spinwheel on this page. What a piece of work.
Thank you, Zandar, for your posts here. I enjoy reading your posts. I’m sorry you have to suffer cyberstalkers like Spinwheel.
Tommy
@Pogonip:
Oh most places. I live in a pretty white and moderate if not conservative area of this nation. I am not carding people but willing to bet about 80% of the people that serve me food if I go to a fast food place or someplace like Hardees are Hispanic and betting many are not legal.
My brother turned me onto Bourdain. Knew I was a foodie. Told me to read what he has to say about the industry.
SRW1
@Spinwheel:
Ok, Ok, we all get that nasty, nasty Zandar took away your pacifier when the two of you were baking cakes in the sandbox.
That was a loooooong, loooooong time ago, though, wasn’t it honey.
Maybe its time to move on and get a life.
WaterGirl
Surprised to see so many people giving attention to the attention seeking troll.
AxelFoley
@askew:
Yes, it sure does. This nut sounds just like that other nut from DKos.
askew
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
bobswern now pretty much lives on the rec list at DK. People think he is brilliant because he and his group pretty much drove the sane voices off the site back in 2010. I still visit the site but there is less and less stuff worth reading there daily.
docg
@Botsplainer: Yes, they arrived in waves, but legally at the time. Don’t understand your point, if you have one.
jl
@docg:
” legally at the time ”
For a lot of that time, ‘legally’ meant stepping off the boat. There were no immigration laws controlling entry for a long time. So, not really an informative contrast.
Another Holocene Human
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo): Congrats! Stress will put you in an early grave. I’m happy for you.
Another Holocene Human
@Botsplainer:
Unrestricted for white ppl.
Which isn’t to say a lot of Italians didn’t come into the country illegally in the arly 20th century.
And many Irish were still coming in illegally right through the end of the 20th–the 80s and 90s. (By the 90s a law had passed making Irish super special penitents to be waved right through though I still know of people who snuck across the border anyway during that period.)
Another Holocene Human
It’s part of being a right wing Catholic. “Kick down the ladder after me!”
They’re terrible people, always have been.
Another Holocene Human
@Spinwheel: Maybe because it’s not true? Start there.
Bitter white guy indeed. Sad. Pathetic. Obsession by White Supremacy.
Another Holocene Human
@Patricia Kayden: The GOP screens their gathering but individual young activists did get some press directly targeting GOP presidential hopefuls last year or the year before in Iowa. Well, actually they starting asking Steve “Cantaloupes” King questions while Rand Paul hustled out the back door. I have no doubt they’re going to be on the 2016 hopefuls.
Another Holocene Human
@jl: Not true. For one thing, you had to prove you had means of support when you arrived in the US. Also, there were strictly enforced national and racial quotas. For many years East Asian immigration was banned (and they made sure to make life hell for the tiny Asian-American population and the guestworkers–what happened during WWII was the culmination of years of bigotry and violence).
But it is true from our POV that they seemed most concerned with quarantining the ill away from shore. I’m not very familiar with the development of passports and national ID but we all know the stories about immigrants who changed their identities on the boat or ancestors who got a custom name change or Anglicization from the clerks in Immigration.
Xenos
@Another Holocene Human: Check out Paxton’s writings on the Vichyists. Right wing, imperialist and revanchist Catholics to a T. Exactly fits about half the supreme court.
David Koch
How does any state have “standing to sue” regarding federal DHS rules?
jl
@Another Holocene Human: You are talking about laws from the 1920s. Even at Ellis Island, people only had to show they were not on a list of banned illegal occupations (not prostitutes, for example), did not have communicable disease or insane.
Otherwise, if you could get to the border of the US and step across, you could reside here.
There were naturalization laws for process of becoming a citizen. None of my ancestors who immigrated here had to worry about laws controlling their right to reside in the US once they got here. They had to worry about conforming to naturalization law if they wanted to vote in federal elections.