Obama won't plead to Supreme Court over executive immigration action; Admin counting on 5th circuit appeal

President Barack Obama's administration has no plans of seeking the Supreme Court's help to reconsider a judge's decision that placed the government's new immigration policies on hold. Instead, the administration will focus on the result of its appeal at the 5^th circuit.

In a report, the Obama administration said they will not bring the case to the Supreme Court, despite that their appeal on the preliminary injunction on the executive immigration action was denied on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the Justice Department said they have decided to focus on defending the merits of the executive action in an appeal to be heard at the 5^th US Circuit Court of Appeals on July 6.

BACKGROUND

Last February 16, a preliminary injunction was issued by a US District Court which stopped Obama's executive action that aims to save about 5 million illegal immigrants from being deported. This court decision was supported by more than 20 states who face the burden of accepting migrants. On February 23, the US government asked the said court to lift the restriction and appealed it to the 5^th Circuit. The court denied the request and the government appealed but was denied on Tuesday.

IMPLICATION ON THE ADMINISTRATION

This move by the government may put immigration executive actions in an undetermined state until Obama leaves for office in 2017. A source says the legal battle may go on for a long time that there is no certainty if it will be able to start implementation before Obama ends his term.

Meanwhile, according to another report, some of the particulars of the executive action remain unchanged such as prioritizing the deportation of criminals and new immigrants over those who have clean records and long ties with the US.

Amid ongoing legal actions, the Obama administration would not like to add confusion on the immigration action and would rather wait for the result of their appeal on the injunction.