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Showing posts with the label illegal immigration

The Supreme Court and Sovereignty

By way of concluding this round-up, I'll address two decisions that themselves addressed the relationship between the United States and its territory, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. I'll also finish my discussion (begun earlier this year, well before this 'round-up series) of a controversy over US policy on the Mexican border and on the deportation of undocumented Mexicans in the U.S. Further, I'll say something about the ability of Indian tribes to maintain their own reservation-based courts, which courts can hear at least some controversies involving persons who are not residents thereof. All these controversies speak in their various ways to the idea of sovereignty, which underlies not only the US constitution, but any nation state's constitution, written or implicit. Tribes and Reservations Reservations are the sovereign territory of the recognized tribe. Obviously the Choctaws are not sovereign in quite the full-throated sense in which the United...

Why DAPA Violates APA

The Supreme Court, earlier this term extended the time that would normally have been slated for arguments on the immigration case this term, US v. Texas. This Monday, it heard those arguments. Some background: the Obama administration has sought to implement a program it calls Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA), effectively allowing people in the US illegally to remain here, work lawfully, and receive other benefits that would otherwise be withheld from them by law. One of the arguments against DAPA is that it violates APA. Also, that's the only argument that employs rhyming acronyms, so it is presumably the important one. APA is the Administrative Procedure Act, and it created notice and comment procedures for new administrative rules. Opponents of the Obama policy contend that DAPA is a new rule within the scope of APA, yet it was initiated without the proper notice-and-comment period, thus it is invalid. Apparently it is the Secretary of Homeland Securi...