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Federal Judge Rules that ICE Agents have Standing in Lawsuit Against Federal Government
Numbers USA ^ | 25 January 2013 | Anne Manetas

Posted on 01/25/2013 10:31:13 PM PST by Lorianne

Federal District Court Judge Reed O'Conner has ruled that 10 ICE agents and officers have standing to challenge in Federal court the so-called Morton Memo on prosecutorial discretion and the DREAM directive on deferred action. The agents filed their complaint in October, charging that unconstitutional and illegal directives from DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and ICE Director John Morton order the agents to violate federal laws or face adverse employment actions. This is a major first step for the ICE agents in their case against the administration.

In his 35-page decision, Judge O'Conner found that the ICE agents and officers have standing, but that the State of Mississippi does not. He has not yet ruled, however, on the agents' motion for a preliminary injunction to halt implementation of the DHS directives.

The primary impetus for the lawsuit came last June, when Secretary Napolitano issued a memo offering deferred action and employment authorization to illegal aliens under age 31 who meet certain criteria similar to those outlined in the DREAM Act, which has failed to pass Congress on three occasions.

Even before that, though, ICE Director Morton essentially gutted immigration enforcement by issuing a memo on prosecutorial discretion that, in effect, prohibits ICE agents and officers from arresting or removing any but the most violent criminal aliens. Under Morton's stated policy, most of the 12 million or so illegal aliens that the administration wants to legalize are currently safe from deportation.

This is just one of the reasons that the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council voted unanimously that they have no confidence in Morton's ability to lead the agency. Aside from ordering ICE agents to not enforce federal immigration laws, Morton has also gutted worksite enforcement and the 287(g) program, which is a cooperative effort between local law enforcement and federal immigration agents.

Read Judge O'Conner's full decision here.

ANNE MANETAS is the Deputy Director of NumbersUSA

NumbersUSA's blogs are copyrighted and may be republished or reposted only if they are copied in their entirety, including this paragraph, and provide proper credit to NumbersUSA. NumbersUSA bears no responsibility for where our blogs may be republished or reposted.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 01/25/2013 10:31:17 PM PST by Lorianne
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To: Lorianne

they better have bodyguards or obama is going to vince foster them.


2 posted on 01/25/2013 10:35:31 PM PST by Secret Agent Man (I can neither confirm or deny that; even if I could, I couldn't - it's classified.)
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To: Lorianne

Wow!

So there are some men of honor.

Refreshing.

Hopefully it results in an injection prohibiting ICE from further unlawful and illegal actions.

Of course the White Hut will respond that the whole thing. Is irresponsible., unenforceable and ridiculous ....


3 posted on 01/25/2013 11:05:07 PM PST by Vendome (Don't take life so seriously, you won't live through it anyway)
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Bit by bit (I hope) the courts and people are waking up to the tyranny that has been ecalating especially so the last couple of years.


4 posted on 01/25/2013 11:07:06 PM PST by llevrok (Unlike Obama, at least Nero could play a fiddle.)
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To: Lorianne
Morton essentially gutted immigration enforcement by issuing a memo on prosecutorial discretion

As I said at the time, if we can find someone with standing to sue, there is no way the courts can allow this to stand.

Prosecutorial discretion cannot exempt entire classes of criminals from prosecution. If it could, no law would be safe from prosecutorial nullification simply by defining the group against which it is enforced to be large enough. At the opposite extreme, Bills of Attainder, expressly forbidden in the Constitution could be created simply by a nodding agreement between Congress and Federal Law enforcement to prosecute only a single person for a broadly defined crime.

The theory of prosecutorial discretion only allows prosecutors to make exceptions in instant cases where the interests of the people are not served by due process. Every other exercise is a form of misconduct. That is exactly what these Executive Orders have done: effectively nugated laws passed by Congress. That makes them unlawful and it makes their execution a crime.

5 posted on 01/26/2013 12:31:40 AM PST by FredZarguna ("The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." -- Henry the Sixth Part II, 4.2.71-78)
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To: Vendome
This is a recurring problem in government. You have a boss who seeks to appease a complainant by nudging the legal standard just a little bit. Of course the effect of everything gub'mnt does is multiplied by 320 million times, so you end up with a mess that just everybody is going to see.

The answer is sometimes to just get rid of the boss and go back to work like nothing happened. Other times you need to remind higher levels of management of the 17 different criminal statutes on the books that make what your boss told you to do UNLAWFUL, and that you, personally, are not going to take the rap for management when they get caught ~ so they have to act to change things quickly.

They will assume you've already contacted your lawyer(s) and possibly called the FBI ~ or your agency's IG ~ or maybe even told a foreign agent about the brewing scandal in your place of work.

Those are always good guesses about what the higher ups are doing. However, it's pretty obvious that when you deal with the Obama Regime that they all think they've found a new way around the law ~ to wit, just ignore it ~ maybe write a memo to the subordinates about that.

Knowing those memos do not have the force of law, the employees understand that they can be prosecuted later on for ignoring the law (which has its own legal name) ~ so they will object. This suit follows on the same folks earlier notifiying this incredibly pig headed incompetent Napolitano person that they aren't breaking the law for her NO MATTER WHAT.

Obama and his ignorant thugs have made a serious mistake. In general the professional permanent bureaucracy is going to follow the guidance of the courts in these matters, and if it's necessary for somebody to arrest Eric Holder I'm sure there will be no end of volunteers for that job ~ and he'd best not try running either ~ they spend lots off time on the range sharpening their skills.

6 posted on 01/26/2013 3:08:45 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: llevrok
Bit by bit (I hope) the courts and people are waking up to the tyranny that has been escalating especially so the last couple of years.

Speaking of tyranny, can we make a Freedom Of Information request for a copy of the TSA Plan to control and suppress nationwide civil disorder in the event that right-wing demonstrators try to cling to their ammunition, their weapons, and their God?

There are such plans inside the government Departments, Services, and Agencies.

7 posted on 01/26/2013 5:11:35 AM PST by Rapscallion (How's that tyranny working out for you now, hmmm?)
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To: Lorianne
To my thinking, there are many levels of crime with Fast and Furious, up to and including murder and treason.

Bless them and the court for their bravery and their will to fight the Beast. Lord, please keep them safe and let the full measure of justice be done.

8 posted on 01/26/2013 7:00:23 AM PST by GBA (Here in the Matrix, life is but a dream.)
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To: Lorianne

This might turn savagely ugly in a hurry. If that memo is overturned, a very large number of illegal aliens have already submitted detailed paperwork to the feds, loaded with personal information, and they will be totally compromised.

A lot of them were raised from infancy in the US, mostly or entirely speak English, were educated in the US, and see Mexico as a foreign country to which they have no connection.

If you can imagine a scenario of rounding up tens of thousands of random high school students and shipping them to a foreign country, it would be like a reenactment of the 13th Century Children’s Crusade.

That is, the girls will be raped and forced into prostitution, the boys enlisted in the drug cartel armies, given guns and told to kill, and pretty much every one of them will be enslaved. And the Mexican government will do nothing.


9 posted on 01/26/2013 7:52:20 AM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy (Best WoT news at rantburg.com)
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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy

Yep, those who went for that ‘drean deal’ may well regret it.

But it was a data mining operation from the beggining. Many saw through it and didn’t register for the “dream”.


10 posted on 01/26/2013 1:46:09 PM PST by Lorianne (fedgov, taxporkmoney)
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To: Lorianne
Of course these ICE agents will lose their jobs. Matter of fact, given 0bama's tendencies, they better watch their six.

5.56mm

11 posted on 01/26/2013 1:56:43 PM PST by M Kehoe
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