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Throughout the entire litigation over DAPA, the Administration has insisted over and over and over again that this administration is deporting more Americans than ever, and Texas can’t possibly claim an abdication of authority because DHS is deporting more people than ever. Now, The Washington Post reports that new DHS policies will decrease the number of deportations for aliens that are not “convicted criminals, terrorism threats or those who recently crossed the border,” and instead focus on “integrating” these preferred aliens.

The Obama administration has begun a profound shift in its enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws, aiming to hasten the integration of long-term illegal immigrants into society rather than targeting them for deportation, according to documents and federal officials.

In recent months, the Department of Homeland Security has taken steps to ensure that the majority of the United States’ 11.3 million undocumented immigrants can stay in this country, with agents narrowing enforcement efforts to three groups of illegal migrants: convicted criminals, terrorism threats or those who recently crossed the border.

While public attention has been focused on the court fight over President Obama’s highly publicized executive action on immigration, DHS has with little fanfare been training thousands of immigration agents nationwide to carry out new policies on everyday enforcement.

While this policy lacks the hallmark of DAPA and DACA–providing work authorization–it is a much wider ranging abdication of enforcement of the immigration laws. Only aliens who fit into the class of dangerous aliens are not presumptively deportable.

But the shift in DHS’s enforcement priorities, which are separate from the DAPA program and have not been challenged in court, could prove even more far-reaching.

The new policies direct agents to focus on the three priority groups and leave virtually everyone else alone. Demographic data shows that the typical undocumented immigrant has lived in the United States for a decade or more and has established strong community ties.

Although the new measures do not grant illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, their day-to-day lives could be changed in countless ways. Now, for instance, undocumented migrants say they are so afraid to interact with police, for fear of being deported, that they won’t report crimes and often limit their driving to avoid possible traffic stops. The new policies, if carried out on the ground, could dispel such fears, advocates for immigrants say.

This is remarkable. It goes far beyond the argument that DHS lacks the resources to deport everyone here illegally. But now, they are moving the goal posts even further, so that removal isn’t even a priority at all!

In describing the initiatives, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has echoed the language often used by advocates of comprehensive immigration reform, which remains stalled on Capitol Hill.

“We are making it clear that we should not expend our limited resources on deporting those who have been here for years, have committed no serious crimes, and have, in effect, become integrated members of our society,” Johnson said in a recent speech in Houston. He added, “These people are here, they live among us, and they are not going away.”

In other words, even if we had the resources, we wouldn’t deport them. This is a very, very different argument than the government has made in the past.

Since the new policies took effect in January, Johnson’s instructions have been conveyed to agents throughout the department. “We decided we’re going to draw a clear line between individuals who now have significant equities in the country versus those who are recent entrants,” said one department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.

“If people are not an enforcement priority,” the official said, “. . . bottom line, the secretary has said don’t go after them.”

An unnamed administration official has said, very clearly, that DHS will not pursue certain aliens. This is an even more unequivocal abdication than DAPA, which clung to the pretense that DAPA status could be revoke–even though there was a roughly 99% renewal rate.

As a result, deportations are plummeting:

Deportations, for example, are dropping. The Obama administration is on pace to remove 229,000 people from the country this year, a 27 percent fall from last year and nearly 50 percent less than the all-time high in 2012.

Fewer people are also in the pipeline for deportation. The number of occupied beds at immigration detention facilities, which house people arrested for immigration violations, has dropped nearly 20 percent this year.

And on Johnson’s orders, officials are reviewing the entire immigrant detainee population — and each of the 400,000 cases in the nation’s clogged immigration courts — to weed out those who don’t meet the new priorities. About 3,000 people have been released from custody or had their immigration cases dropped, DHS officials said.

There is little pretense for executive discretion anymore when a class of 11 million is systematically exempted from the immigration laws.

The Justices recently released their financial disclosures. Last year Justice Breyer made $60,000 and Justice Scalia made $30,000 on book royalties.

How did the Justices with books make out with royalties?

• Justice Scalia made $33,798 from West Services.
• Justice Breyer made $7,214 from Random House and $126 from Kopf.
• Like in 2013, Justice Sotomayor received “no ‘noninvestment income’ in 2014” from her book. But she wrote that the “Knopf Double Day Group, publisher of my memoir “My Beloved World,” disbursed $25,990.00 during 2014 to promote the sale of the memoir.” In 2012, she disclosed a $1,000,000 advance and a separate $925,000 advance. As I speculated last year, she is still paying off the advance, and has not earned any royalties beyond the $2,000,000 paid up front.
• Justice Thomas did not list any royalties for “My Grandfather’s Son.”

After reading the Court’s decision in the Arizona Legislature case (I still haven’t made up my mind on the merits, but I’m inclined to agree with the Chief’s dissent), I noted that Justice Ginsburg’s standing analysis was very good news for the House of Representative’s challenge to Obamacare, and Texas’s challenge to executive action on immigration. On cue, Jonathan Turley, representing the House, filed notices of supplemental authority discussing the Arizona case. In response to a call for briefing from the 5th Circuit, the Texas SG has also filed a supplemental notice.

Perhaps most significantly, the Court distinguished Mass. v. Mellon, which the government has relied on extensively.

Arizona State Legislature bolstered Plaintiffs’ independent parens patriae standing theory by distinguishing Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 447 (1923), a case Defendants have cited in attacking that theory. See Appellants’ (DOJ) Br. 32; DOJ Reply Br. 11.

The Supreme Court emphasized that States’ standing to sue the federal government as parens patriae depends on “the kind of claim that the state advances.” Ariz. State Leg., 2015 WL 2473452, at *10 n.10. In illustrating this point, the Supreme Court approvingly cited its decision finding standing in Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497 (2007). And, as Plaintiffs have explained, Massachusetts distinguishes between States suing to enforce federal law and suing to block federal law. See id. at 520 n.17 (explaining that a State can sue the federal government under a parens patriae theory when it is asserting “rights under federal law” rather than seeking to “protect her citizens from the operation of federal statutes”).

In Mellon, the Court found no standing where Massachusetts sued the federal government to block the operation of federal statutes. Ariz. State Leg., 2015 WL 2473452, at *10 n.10; Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. at 520 n.17. Here, in contrast, Plaintiffs seek to enforce federal statutes. In other words, this lawsuit is analogous to Massachusetts’s later suit against the EPA, where the Supreme Court found standing.

And reaffirms Mass. v. EPA’s discussion of “special solicitude,” in the context of the “institutional injury.”

Arizona State Legislature confirms that States are “entitled to special solicitude in [a court’s] standing analysis.” Ariz. State Leg., 2015 WL 2473452, at *10 n.10 (quoting Massachusetts, 549 U.S. at 520). In Arizona State Legislature, standing was premised on the fact that the Arizona Legislature’s redistricting powers were “strip[ped]” and “nullif[ied].” 2015 WL 2473452, at *8, *10. The Court recognized that was an “institutional injury.” Id. at *10.

Similarly, the States suffer institutional injuries when federal agencies fail to abide by congressional enactments that preempt state prerogatives. “When a State enters the Union, it surrenders certain sovereign prerogatives” that become “lodged in the Federal Government.” Massachusetts, 549 U.S. at 519. A State’s agreement to have its authority preempted on such sovereign matters—for instance, determining the lawful presence of individuals within its borders—is premised on the understanding that Congress’s enactments serve to “protect” the States. Id.

…

When the Executive Branch “has abdicated its responsibility under [federal statutes],” Massachusetts, 549 U.S. at 505, it negates the basis on which the States agreed to allow federal preemption of their sovereign prerogatives. See ROA.4432-43 (district court’s opinion); Amicus Br. of Prof. Ernest A. Young 15-20. For this reason, States are accorded “special solicitude” in demonstrating their standing to sue the federal Executive. Ariz. State Leg., 2015 WL 2473452, at *10 n.10 (quoting Massachusetts, 549 U.S. at 520).

Texas also distinguishes Justice Scalia’s remarks as inapplicable here:

Justice Scalia’s dissent in Arizona State Legislature suggested that plaintiffs should not have standing when they ask courts to “resolve direct disputes between two political branches of the same government.” 2015 WL 2473452, at *40 (emphasis added). Of course, the majority of the Court did not adopt this view. Regardless, Justice Scalia’s reasoning is inapplicable here. Plaintiffs are not suing other branches within their own governments; they are suing another government. Such lawsuits pose no difficulty, as exemplified by the scores of original cases in the Supreme Court involving one State suing another. See, e.g., States Br. 32 (citing Wyoming v. Oklahoma, 502 U.S. 437, 447-48 (1992), and Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U.S. 725, 736-37 (1981)).

The Hill Reports:

President Obama is taking a victory lap on his landmark healthcare legislation less than a week after the Supreme Court delivered a key decision in favor of the administration.

“I’m feeling pretty good about how healthcare’s going,” Obama said to applause from an audience in Nashville, Tenn.

In his first public remarks devoted to healthcare since the court’s 6-3 decision, Obama vowed to make the law “even better.”

“I think it’s important to remember that everybody who has health insurance benefited and continues to benefit from this law even though a lot of folks don’t know it,” Obama said during the town hall meeting.

In a bizarre story from Germany, a robot at a VW plan, that was programmed to grab and manipulate auto parts, grabbed a human and crushed him.

A robot has killed a contractor at one of Volkswagen’s production plants inGermany, the automaker said Wednesday.

The man died Monday at the plant in Baunatal, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Frankfurt, VW spokesman Heiko Hillwig said.

The 22-year-old was part of a team that was setting up the stationary robot when it grabbed and crushed him against a metal plate, Hillwig said.

He said initial conclusions indicate that human error was to blame, rather than a problem with the robot, which can be programmed to perform various tasks in the assembly process. He said it normally operates within a confined area at the plant, grabbing auto parts and manipulating them.

Obviously this robot didn’t get past the first rule. In a reference to the questions of liability for torts committed by robots, the article closes:

German news agency dpa reported that prosecutors were considering whether to bring charges, and if so, against whom.

Against whom, or what?

This reminds me of an Onion story last year about Ohio replacing the lethal injection with the “humane new head-ripping-off-machine” that will automatically rip off the head of anyone that sits in the chair.