LexisNexis Expert Stephen Yale-Loehr on Federal Court Immigration Battles

"The Obama administration promised Tuesday to fight against opposition from both the courts and Congress to keep in place its expansive new programs to shield millions of immigrants from deportation, a key piece of the president's effort to shape his legacy in his final years in office.  A federal judge in Texas issued an order late Monday that temporarily blocked the administration from putting into effect President Obama's executive actions on immigration. ... Some experts in immigration law predicted Hanen's opinion would be overturned.  "The federal courts have been very deferential to the executive branch on immigration issues," said Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor at Cornell Law School.  Though the question might ultimately end up before the Supreme Court, he said he expected that the justices would wait to weigh in until lower courts had heard the constitutional issues." - L.A. Times, Feb. 17, 2015.

"A federal court Friday temporarily halted the Obama administration’s policy of keeping in detention mothers and children seeking asylum in the U.S., which it began implementing amid a surge in illegal crossings last summer.  The lawsuit challenged the new practice by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a unit of the Department of Homeland Security, of detaining women and children who had shown a credible fear of persecution.  The federal court in Washington, D.C., ordered the government to stop the so-called “no release” policy.  The government is likely to appeal the decision, according to analysts. ... “It’s ironic that one court [Judge Hanen] viewed the administration as being too generous and the other found it to be too harsh,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration professor at Cornell Law School. “The government just can’t seem to win, no matter what it does.” " - Wall Street Journal, Feb. 20, 2015.