Injunction Against President Obama's Immigration Actions Upheld: Fifth Circuit | Practical Law

Injunction Against President Obama's Immigration Actions Upheld: Fifth Circuit | Practical Law

In Texas v. United States, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the district court's preliminary injunction blocking implementation of several of President Obama's executive immigration actions. The Fifth Circuit held that the government was unlikely to succeed on the merits of its appeal of the injunction and therefore denied the government's request to stay the injunction.

Injunction Against President Obama's Immigration Actions Upheld: Fifth Circuit

Practical Law Legal Update 1-614-6425 (Approx. 5 pages)

Injunction Against President Obama's Immigration Actions Upheld: Fifth Circuit

by Practical Law Labor & Employment
Published on 29 May 2015 • USA (National/Federal)
In Texas v. United States, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the district court's preliminary injunction blocking implementation of several of President Obama's executive immigration actions. The Fifth Circuit held that the government was unlikely to succeed on the merits of its appeal of the injunction and therefore denied the government's request to stay the injunction.
On May 26, 2015, in Texas v. United States, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld a preliminary injunction granted by a federal district court in February blocking implementation of several of President Obama's executive actions on immigration. The Fifth Circuit held that the government was unlikely to succeed on the merits of its appeal of the injunction and therefore denied the government's request to stay the injunction. The injunction halted both the expansion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program as well as the implementation of the new Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) program (see Legal Update, Preliminary Injunction Blocks President Obama's Executive Immigration Action: SD Texas). (No. 15-40238, (5th Cir. May 26, 2015).)

Background

The plaintiffs, comprised of Texas and twenty-five other states opposing the President’s actions on immigration, filed suit seeking to enjoin the executive branch’s plans to expand the DACA program and establish the new DAPA prosecutorial discretion program. DAPA would stay deportation proceedings and grant employment authorization to several million people currently without lawful status in the US. For more information on these programs, see Legal Update, Immigration Executive Actions Announced by President Obama. The plaintiffs argued that implementation, in the form of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson’s DAPA Directive, violates the Take Care Clause of the US Constitution, the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) and the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
On February 16, 2015, the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas issued a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking implementation of President Obama's executive actions (see Legal Update, Preliminary Injunction Blocks President Obama's Executive Immigration Action: SD Texas). The district court found that the plaintiffs established:
  • Standing to bring the lawsuit and the standing necessary for APA reviewability.
  • A likelihood of success on the merits in challenging implementation of DAPA program.
  • Irreparable harm absent an injunction.
  • The balance of the equities favored issuing an injunction to preserve the status quo.
The government appealed to the Fifth Circuit.

Outcome

The Fifth Circuit, in a 2-1 ruling, upheld the injunction granted by the district court, holding that:
  • The US had failed to make a strong showing that it would succeed on the merits of its appeal of the injunction.
  • The district court did not abuse its discretion when it granted the injunction on a nationwide basis, and a partial injunction confined to Texas and the other plaintiff states would undermine the need for uniform immigration laws.
The majority rejected each of the key arguments advanced by the US, finding that:
  • Plaintiffs had standing because the increased costs to Texas in having to issue driver's licenses to DAPA beneficiaries (or to change its state laws and driver's license fee structure to offset the increased driver's license costs) represented an injury-in-fact that could be directly traced to the executive branch's immigration actions and was redressable by a ruling enjoining the implementation of DAPA.
  • The states were seeking to protect interests within the zone of interests protected by the APA and the INA (Clarke v. Sec. Indus. Ass’n, 479 U.S. 388 (1987); Arizona v. United States, 132 S. Ct. 2492 (2012)).
  • The US had failed to make a strong showing that:
    • the executive branch's actions were not subject to judicial review under the APA and the INA; and
    • DAPA's implementation did not require notice-and-comment rulemaking.
  • The US would not be irreparably harmed absent a stay of the injunction.
  • The plaintiffs had shown that DAPA's implementation would cause them irreparable injury.
The dissenting judge found that the stay of the injunction should be granted, arguing that the deferred action policy put forward in Secretary Johnson's internal directive (referred to in the dissent as a "memorandum"):
  • Was non-justiciable because an agency's decision not to prosecute is absolutely discretionary and not appropriate for court ruling (Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821 (1985)).
  • Was not a legislative rule requiring notice-and-comment rulemaking because it:
    • did not impose a binding regulatory regime on regulated entities;
    • did not coerce regulated entities to conform to particular obligations and prohibitions; and
    • would not ultimately, when implemented, have a binding effect on regulated entities.

Practical Implications

The Fifth Circuit's decision represents a setback to implementation of President Obama's immigration actions and it seems unlikely that the DACA expansion and DAPA program can be implemented any time in the near future. The US announced it will not appeal the Fifth Circuit's decision to the US Supreme Court, and the Fifth Circuit has scheduled arguments on the US's appeal of the injunction for July 10, 2015. Given that the Fifth Circuit has already found the US unlikely to succeed on the merits of that appeal, it seems unlikely that the injunction will be overturned on appeal. The Fifth Circuit distinguished its findings in this case from its recent decision in Crane v. Johnson, in which it held that the state of Mississippi and a group of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and deportation officers lacked standing to challenge the DACA program (see Legal Update, Fifth Circuit: 2012 DACA Program Upheld Because Plaintiffs Lack Standing).