Higher court refuses to rehear Texas immigration case

Ed Sterling

 

The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 3 denied the Obama administration’s petition for a rehearing of United States v. Texas, a high-profile immigration case.

 

Heard by the eight-member high court in April, the case ended in a 4-4 deadlock in a late-June ruling. The deadlock left in place a Texas federal district court’s temporary injunction freezing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s November 2014 policies known as “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” and “Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents.” The policies are aimed at forestalling the deportation of an estimated 4 million undocumented immigrants and providing a conditional path to citizenship.

 

In December 2014, Texas was joined by a coalition of other states in a lawsuit challenging the policies as an unconstitutional federal overreach. In February 2015, Brownsville U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen sided with the plaintiffs and granted a petition for temporary injunction.