WASHINGTON (AP) —
The Supreme Court deadlocked Thursday on President Barack Obama's
immigration plan that sought to shield millions living in the U.S.
illegally from deportation, effectively killing the plan for the rest of
his presidency.
The outcome
underscores that the direction of U.S. immigration policy will be
determined in large part by this fall's presidential election, a campaign
in which immigration already has played an outsized role.
People who would
have benefited from Obama's plan face no imminent threat of deportation
because Congress has provided money to deal with only a small percentage
of people who live in the country illegally, and the president retains
ample discretion to decide whom to deport. But Obama's effort to expand
that protection to many others is effectively stymied.
Obama said
Thursday's impasse "takes us further from the country we aspire to be."
The 4-4 tie vote
sets no national precedent but leaves in place the ruling by the lower
court. The justices issued a one-sentence opinion, with no further
comment.
A nine-justice
court agreed to hear the case in January, but by the time of the arguments
in late April, Justice Antonin Scalia had died. That left eight justices
to decide the case, and the court presumably split along liberal and
conservative lines, although the court did not say how each justice voted.
In this case, the
federal appeals court in New Orleans said the Obama administration lacked
the authority to shield up to 4 million immigrants from deportation and
make them eligible for work permits without approval from Congress.
Texas led 26
Republican-dominated states in challenging the program Obama announced in
November 2014. Congressional Republicans also backed the states' lawsuit.
The Obama
administration announced the programs — protections for parents of
children who are in the country legally and an expansion of the program
that benefits people who were brought to this country as children — in
November 2014. Obama decided to move forward after Republicans won control
of the Senate in the 2014 midterm elections, and the chances for an
immigration overhaul, already remote, were further diminished.
The Senate had
passed a broad immigration bill with Democratic and Republican support in
2013, but the measure went nowhere in the GOP-controlled House of
Representatives.
The states
quickly went to court to block the Obama initiatives. Their lawsuit was
heard by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville, Texas. Hanen
previously had criticized the administration for lax immigration
enforcement.
Hanen sided with
the states, blocking the programs from taking effect. The 5th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals also ruled for the states, and the Justice Department
rushed an appeal to the high court so that it could be heard this term.
Had Scalia still
been alive, though, he almost certainly would have voted with his fellow
conservatives to form a majority in favor of the states.
In practical
terms, a victory by presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump could mean
an end to the programs anyway, since he has vowed to deport the roughly 11
million immigrants who are in the United States illegally.
If Hillary
Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, is elected, she could attempt
to revive the programs or work with the new Congress on comprehensive
immigration legislation.
If Clinton wins,
the Senate will at some point fill the vacancy created by Scalia's death —
either with Obama's nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, or a Clinton choice.
In either case, legal challenges to executive action under her
administration would come to a court that would have a majority of
Democratic-appointed justices and, in all likelihood, give efforts to help
immigrants a friendlier reception.