AG Lynch on U.S. v. Texas: “We will be reviewing the case and seeing what, if anything else, we need to do in court”

June 28th, 2016

Reuters interviewed the Attorney General, and asked if it could do anything about U.S. v. Texas. Her answer is, well, intriguing.

The Obama administration is looking into whether it can challenge the Supreme Court’s decision to block President Barack Obama’s plan to spare millions of illegal immigrants from deportation, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Tuesday.

“We will be reviewing the case and seeing what, if anything else, we need to do in court,” Lynch told Reuters in an interview.

Lynch did not say what legal options the Obama administration may pursue following a split decision by the Supreme Court justices last week that left in place a block on the executive action by a lower court.

She said any future executive actions Obama may take on immigration would be left to the White House.

I hope AG Lynch’s statements are anodyne, as the DOJ must proceed to defend the policy on summary judgment back in Brownsville. But based on how Reuters framed it, it seems to suggest that perhaps the DOJ could do something else to put DAPA into effect.

In April, I addressed the argument that states can seek enforcement of DAPA in a more favorable circuit–it makes no sense because the policy (according to the government at least) is purely discretionary. But could the United States seek a declaratory judgment in another circuit about the constitutionality of DAPA, for the sole purposes of creating a circuit split? The effect would be that DAPA remains enjoined only in Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana? Would they allow a non-uniform approach to immigration laws?

Let’s hope her comment was anodyne.