Republican Presidential candidate presumptive nominee Donald Trump could be an unexpected beneficiary if the Supreme Court chooses to rule in favor of the immigration reform taken via executive action by President Barack Obama, experts claim. The 2014 executive action is currently languishing in legal limbo after a lawsuit from 26 states led by Texas, with the case now before the Supreme Court.
If the court rules that a President does have the kind of broad authority needed to pass his own interpretation of federal immigration law without the approval of Congress, Obama could begin implementing the executive action that has become a signature of his Presidency before he leaves the White House. That being said, it could also end up helping the controversial plans for a different kind of sweeping immigration reform proposed by Donald Trump.
Cornell Law School immigration expert Stephen Yale-Loehr says that Trump’s hand would certainly be strengthened by a Supreme Court ruling that favored Obama’s executive action. The ruling is also set to come at a crucial moment in this year’s heated Presidential election, with increasingly passionate exchanges over immigration policy taking place between Trump and presumptive Democrat candidate nominee Hillary Clinton.
Trump is calling for the deportation of the approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States as well as limiting Muslim immigration and putting a halt to immigration altogether from countries linked to extremists. His proposals have sparked condemnation from some, and he might need to take his own executive action to implement them should he win the White House in November.