Supreme Court to decide whether to review executive action on immigration

The U.S. Supreme Court could decide this week whether to review the constitutionality of President Obama's immigration Executive Action, which could give temporary legal status to approximately 5 million immigrants.

January is the last month in which the Supreme Court can accept which cases it can accept for evaluation in the remainder of its current term, which ends at the end of June/beginning of July.

President Obama announced the deferred action immigration benefit on November 20, 2014 for undocumented immigrants who have resident or citizen children and others who arrived as children, in order to stop their deportation and give them the opportunity to live and work legally in the country on a temporary basis.

But a federal judge in February 2015 halted their measures - DAPA (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans Residents and Citizens) and the expansion of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals).

Federal appeals court judges from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans refused to lift the block on the measures in November, preventing their implementation.

The Department of Justice decided to take the case to the Supreme Court, hoping that the highest court in the land will reverse the lower court ruling and reaffirm the constitutionality of the President's immigration executive actions.

If the Supreme Court determines that the executive actions are constitutional and valid, the legal block on the measures could be lifted and would allow for their implementation, giving them the temporary immigration relief the President sought to provide to millions of undocumented immigrants living in the United States.

 

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