News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Feb. 27, 2015: Conservative GOP Judge Andrew S. Hanen, of Federal District Court for the Southern District of Texas, in Brownsville, has undoubtedly dealt a harsh blow to immigrants who were set to begin applying this week for relief under President Obama’s executive action on immigration reform.
In ruling that the Obama administration had not followed required procedures for changing federal rules and that the program would impose major burdens on states, what Hanen has basically done is given his Republican cronies another reason to keep undocumented immigrants in a state of perpetual fear while providing no real solution to the problem.
But then again no one who knows Hanen and his record is surprised. Hanen was born in a very White area in Waco and has developed a track record as a conservative “activist” judge who favors Republican causes. After all, his very appointment by President George W. Bush to the Court was based on his conservative activism.
No surprise that Hanen has been outspoken about immigration and critical of Obama’s deportation policy. His 123-page explanation of why he granted the temporary injunction on the flimsiest of technicalities to stop authorize the spurious claims made by the 26 states that are suing to stop the president’s executive order on immigration.
In his stay, he claims that the states have a right to challenge established federal authority with regard to immigration because there would be a cost to provide driver licenses to undocumented immigrants that equals approximately $130.
It is no surprise. Immigrant-rights advocates say he’s always been a foe of immigration rights. Some allege a “bias” against them, and according to the International Business Times, cited a December 2013 ruling where Hanen accused federal officials of being complicit in human trafficking amid a surge of illegal immigrant children crossing the border because the children were later delivered to their parents in the U.S.
“Instead of arresting (the child’s mother) for instigating the conspiracy to violate our border security laws, the (Homeland Security Department) delivered the child to her – thus successfully completing the mission of the criminal conspiracy,” Hanen wrote at the time.
Hanen has only delayed the inevitable Legal scholars agree this injunction is only a bump in the road bump for President Obama and the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services. The Conservative mad hatters may have scored a minute win but Dreamers will win eventually while the Republican Party will be the ones who will pay the ultimate price come 2016.
The writer is CMO of Hard Beat Communications, which owns the brands News Americas Now, CaribPR Wire and Invest Caribbean Now.
