Arizona tests delayed deportation policies (UPDATED)

[Draggingtree]

:

Lyle Denniston Reporter

Posted Thu, December 11th, 2014 3:49 pm

Arizona tests delayed deportation policies (UPDATED)

UPDATED 5:31 p.m. Justice Kennedy has called for a response to this application, to be filed by noon (Eastern time) next Tuesday, December 16.

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State officials in Arizona, seeking to block undocumented immigrants from getting driver’s licenses even if they have been spared from deportation, asked the Supreme Court today to examine new Obama administration moves on immigration policy. This marked the first time that the Court has been drawn into the tense national debate over President Obama’s actions on immigration without waiting for Congress to act on a new law.

 

The Arizona application (14A625) is here; a challenged decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is here. A federal district court ruling in the case is here.

 

Although the application is written in sweeping terms, contending that the Obama administration had no authority in 2012 or this year to delay deportation of individuals who entered the U.S. illegally and is refusing to enforce immigration law, its actual legal target is the impact of those policies on the question of who can get a driver’s license in Arizona.