A federal appeals court yesterday denied the request by the Obama administration to lift an injunction on the the president’s executive actions on immigration, which would provide millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States with both work permits and freedom from the immediate threat of deportation.
Two of the three-judge panel on the Fifth Circuit US Court of Appeals in New Orleans voted to leave the injunction placed in February by Texas judge Andrew Hanen in place. The decision was taken by Hanen in response to an appeal launched against the executive actions by 26 states, headed by Texas, and a large number of the initiatives set to start this month remain in limbo.
The appeals court decided that there were grounds for the lawsuit and that the Obama administration had failed to show that the injunction would cause any harm if left in place until the result of the court challenge. The court also denied a request to apply the injunction only in the states involved in the legal challenge. The ruling comes as another setback for the president’s plans to enact immigration reform and has raised new doubts about whether he will see his actions bear fruit before the end of his tenure in the White House.The ruling on the request for an emergency stay on the injunction does not necessarily mean that the White House will end up losing the bigger case, however, with the larger appeal still to be heard in the Fifth Circuit.