Obama Administration Asks Court to Deny Texas More Time on Immigration
Request to extend response period would push Supreme Court case to October 2016
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Updated Nov. 24, 2015 8:14 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON—The Obama administration, seeking to implement its immigration plan before the president leaves office, asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to deny Texas’ request for more time to respond to the government’s appeal of a court order blocking the policies.
Texas and 25 other mostly Republican-led states obtained a lower court order blocking the administration’s immigration plan, which would grant a temporary reprieve from deportation to more than four million illegal immigrants whose children are U.S. citizens or lawful residents.
After the administration appealed to the Supreme Court, Texas requested a 30-day extension in filing its response. Should it be granted, the court’s briefing schedule could make it difficult for the justices to hear the case during the current term. Arguments are held into April and decisions delivered through June.
“The effect of such a delay would be to prolong for an additional year the disruption of federal immigration policy and the irreparable harm of denial of work authorization and other protections to millions of people who would be eligible for those protections if the policy is upheld,” Solicitor General Donald Verrilli said in a letter to the court clerk.
The court is widely expected to agree to hear the case. If it grants Texas’ extension and sticks to its standard schedule, argument wouldn’t be heard before October 2016—a month ahead of the election to choose President Barack Obama’s successor.
Mr. Verrilli offered a compromise, writing that the government would agree to an eight-day extension, meaning Texas would have to file its response brief by Dec. 29.
If the court grants Texas’ 30-day request, Mr. Verrilli said, the government would move to expedite the case and schedule a special argument in May. Such argument sessions are rare.
In a letter delivered Monday, the Texas solicitor general, Scott Keller, told the court clerk he needed the extra 30 days because his staff was busy working on other cases.
His office “has numerous pressing deadlines in other cases that were pending in this court before” the government appealed a lower court decision blocking the immigration program, Mr. Keller wrote. Texas is involved in several cases up before the high court, including December arguments in a case on whether the Constitution requires only eligible voters be counted when forming legislative districts,
Earlier in November, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in New Orleans, upholding a lower court, found the immigration plan couldn’t take effect because the Department of Homeland Security didn’t develop it according to the process laid out for federal rule-making in the Administrative Procedure Act.
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