The Texas judge who ordered an injunction to prevent President Obama’s executive action on immigration reform going ahead has slammed the US government, saying that it misrepresented facts, lied, made him “look like an idiot”, and then went ahead and broke the law by giving 100,081 undocumented immigrants legal status despite the injunction and a pending lawsuit.
In a Brownsville, Texas court hearing, which became very heated, US District Court judge Andrew Hanen said that the alleged violation took place after the government had told him that it would obey his injunction order, which he issued on February 16th, with regard to the attempt to expand the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program announced by Obama in November 2014.
Hanen told Kathleen Hardeck, the US government attorney, that he believed her when she told him the government would not go ahead with its immigration plans and that she had made him look like a fool. Hardeck said that the terminology she had used had been open to misinterpretation and that the government had informed the court when it realized the potential for confusion.
Angela Colmonero of the Texas Attorney General’s office revealed that it was only on March 3rd that the government told the court what it had done, noting that it did the precise opposite of what it had promised. Hanen has threatened possible sanctions if it can be proven that the government deliberately lied to the court.