Supremes’ Amnesty Split Raises Election Stakes 

The Supreme Court’s failure Thursday to reach a decision on President Obama’s attempts to grant quasi-legal status to millions of illegal immigrants raises the stakes of the 2016 president election, which will determine who fills the empty ninth chair.

The justices predictably split 4-4 on whether Obama’s Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents program should be blocked. The ruling leaves in place lower court decisions to put the program on ice nationwide while lawyers litigate the case. The action now returns to the U.S. District Court judge in Texas who has yet to issue a final ruling on the merits.

“This would not be a 4-4 split if Justice Scalia, the biggest constitutionalist, was still there.”

That means the case is unlikely to return to the Supreme Court during Obama’s presidency. It also reinforces the significance of Justice Antonin Scalia’s sudden death earlier this year.

“This would not be a 4-4 split if Justice Scalia, the biggest constitutionalist, was still there,” said William Gheen, who runs the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC.

If Obama had his way, Scalia’s seat might already be filled. But the Republican-held Senate has held firm in blocking the confirmation of appeals court Judge Merrick Garland, arguing that the American people should determine the future direction of the high court through their ballots in November.

Thursday’s 4-4 vote likely will raise the profile of the critical SCOTUS issue.

Democrat Hillary Clinton has vowed to continue and expand Obama’s executive actions on immigration. In a statement, she called the outcome of Thursday’s case “unacceptable”and urged the Senate to take up Garland’s nomination.

“This decision is also a stark reminder of the harm Donald Trump would do to our families, our communities, and our country,” she said in a prepared statement. “Trump has pledged to repeal President Obama’s executive actions on his first day in office. He has called Mexican immigrants ‘rapists’ and ‘murderers.’ He has called for creating a deportation force to tear 11 million people away from their families and their homes.”

Whether it is Garland or someone else, there is no mystery as to the judicial philosophy of any Clinton-appointed justice. Trump, meanwhile, recently put out a list of state and federal judges who would be worthy of consideration for the Supreme Court, and conservative legal scholars generally have given that list high marks.

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Under Obama’s sweeping program issued in November 2014, the government would not deport anyone who has lived continuously in the United States since Jan. 1, 2010, had not been convicted of a felony or a serious misdemeanor and met certain other conditions. Most controversially, the administration wants to issue documents allowing them to work.

Obama insisted Thursday that the failure of the House of Representatives to enact his immigration agenda left him with “little choice” but to take steps through executive action that he had said on multiple occasions that he lacked the authority to take. The court’s decision Thursday, he told reporters at a news conference, “takes us further from the country we aspire to be.”

Critics who argued that the president far exceeded his authority praised the result of Thursday’s ruling.

“It should stop the Obama lawless power grab,” Federation for American Immigration Reform President Dan Stein said in a statement. “By ruling in favor of the federal court’s injunction, half of the nation’s Supreme Court Justices have shown that they have deep concerns about this president’s attempt at a power grab by his efforts to amend federal laws from the Oval Office.”

Stein added, “It’s noteworthy that the president likely suspected that his attempt to rewrite immigration law through an executive amnesty would be ruled unconstitutional, which is why he admitted on 22 occasions prior to granting the amnesty that he lacked the power to do so.”

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Roy Beck, executive director of NumbersUSA, said in a statement that citizens and legal immigrants have been spared the prospect of unfair competition for jobs and wages from millions of illegal immigrants.

“The court maintained that immigration policy — including the power to issue work permits — belongs to the people through their elected officials in Congress and that a president cannot unilaterally change that policy,” he stated.

House Speaker Paul Ryan also praised the outcome.

“This is a win for the Constitution,” he told reporters at a news conference. “It’s a win for Congress. And it’s a win in our right to restore the separation of powers.”