Federal Judge Reed O’Conner ruled on Friday that 10 ICE agents and officers indeed do 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 John 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.
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Sen. Jeff Sessions has called for
Morton to resign.
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“Last year, I joined with my colleagues at a press conference with the top representatives of the nation’s rank-and-file immigration law enforcement officers,” Sessions said on Tuesday. “The president with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office and the Border Patrol. Those associations or unions elected to serve as the voice of their fellow officers gave a chilling report at that press conference right over in the Senate building with several other senators. They gave a chilling report about the administration’s systemic effort to... dismantle the enforcement of our immigration laws. At the center of this misconduct is John Morton, the director of ICE.”
The evidence that I am about to share with you leads me to the unfortunate conclusion that Mr. Morton can no longer effectively serve at this post, and perhaps more importantly there can be no comprehensive immigration reform as long as he’s the person in charge with enforcing it,” Sessions said on the Senate floor. "What purpose is served to pass new laws if the ones we have are ignored by the officials charged with enforcing them?”
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I have long had a minimum high regard for Morton. I don't know him personally and he may very well be doing what Obama and Napolitano tell him to do, but even if that is the case he needs to go. In fact Big Sis needs to go too. We need people who believe in the rule of law and not executive fiat from a President with pretensions of being a constitutional scholar who makes it up to fit his whims.
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