Rosario Reyes, center, who arrived in this country from El Salvador, vowed to fellow demonstrators that they would take their immigration fight to the ballot box in November after the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 4-4 ruling, let a lower court ruling stand forbidding President Obama to launch a program to grant “deferred status” to parents of U.S. citizens.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday announced that it had deadlocked in a case challenging President Obama’s immigration plan, a sharp blow to an ambitious program that Mr. Obama had hoped would become one of his central legacies. As a result, as many as five million undocumented immigrants will not be shielded from deportation or allowed to legally work in the United States.
The 4-4 deadlock, which left in place an appeals court ruling blocking the plan, amplified the already contentious election-year debate over the nation’s immigration policy and presidential power.
The case, United States v. Texas, No. 15-674, concerned an executive action by the president to allow as many as five million unauthorized immigrants who are the parents of citizens or of lawful permanent residents to apply for a program that would spare them from deportation and provide them with work permits. The program was called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA.
Mr. Obama has said he took action in 2014 after years of frustration with Republicans in Congress who had repeatedly refused to support bipartisan Senate legislation to update immigration laws. A coalition of 26 states, led by Texas, promptly challenged the plan, accusing the president of ignoring administrative procedures for changing rules and of abusing the power of his office by circumventing Congress.
“Today’s decision keeps in place what we have maintained from the very start: one person, even a president, cannot unilaterally change the law,” Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, said in a statement after the ruling. “This is a major setback to President Obama’s attempts to expand executive power, and a victory for those who believe in the separation of powers and the rule of law.”
He also said the ruling is a stark reminder of the Republican refusal to consider Judge Merrick B. Garland, the president’s nominee to the Supreme Court. He said the court’s deadlock on the immigration case is proof that the Republican strategy is not “sustainable” over the long run.
He also predicted that lawmakers will eventually act to overhaul the nation’s immigration system.
“Congress is not going to be able to ignore America forever. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when,” he said. “We get these spasms of politics around immigration and fear-mongering, and then our traditions and our history and our better impulses kick in.”
White House officials had repeatedly argued that presidents in both parties have used similar executive authority in applying the nation’s immigration laws. And they said Congress has granted federal law enforcement wide discretion over how those laws should be carried out.
But the court’s ruling most likely means that the next president will once again need to seek a congressional compromise to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws. And it leaves immigration activists deeply disappointed.
“This is personal,” Rocio Saenz, the executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, said in a statement. “We will remain at the front lines, committed to defending the immigration initiatives and paving the path to lasting immigration reform.”
In February 2015, Judge Andrew S. Hanen of Federal District Court in Brownsville, Tex., entered a preliminary injunction shutting down the program while the legal case proceeded. The government appealed, and a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans affirmed the injunction.
In their Supreme Court briefs, the states acknowledged that the president had wide authority over immigration matters, telling the justices that “the executive does have enforcement discretion to forbear from removing aliens on an individual basis.” Their quarrel, they said, was with what they called a blanket grant of “lawful presence” to millions of immigrants, entitling them to various benefits.
In response, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. told the justices that this “lawful presence” was merely what had always followed from the executive branch’s decision not to deport someone for a given period of time.
“Deferred action does not provide these individuals with any lawful status under the immigration laws,” he said. “But it provides some measure of dignity and decent treatment.”
