DHS Broke
Judge’s Order, Approved Amnesty Applications Despite Injunction
By Stephen Dinan - The Washington
President
Obama’s lawyers admitted to a federal judge late Thursday that they had broken
the court’s injunction halting the administration’s new deportation amnesty,
issuing thousands of work permits even after Judge Andrew S. Hanen had ordered
the program stopped.
The
stunning admission, filed just before midnight in Texas
The
Justice Department lawyers said Homeland Security, which is the defendant in
the case, told them Wednesday that an immigration agency had approved about
2,000 applications for three-year work permits, which was part of Mr. Obama’s
new amnesty, even after Judge Hanen issued his Feb. 16 injunction halting the
entire program.
Top Obama
officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, had repeatedly
assured Congress they had fully halted the program and were complying with the
order.
“The
government sincerely regrets these circumstances and is taking immediate steps
to remedy these erroneous three-year terms,” the administration lawyers said.
Sen.
Charles E. Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said it was
“remarkable” that the administration kept approving some applications.
“The last time I checked, injunctions are not
mere suggestions. They are not optional,” the Iowa Republican said. “This
disregard for the court’s action is unacceptable and disturbing, especially
after Secretary Johnson’s assurances that his agency would honor the
injunction.”
He has
written a letter to Mr. Johnson asking the department to turn over all of its
communications about implementing the three-year policy.
The
Justice Department didn’t respond to a request for comment Friday, but Homeland
Security officials said Mr. Johnson has asked his department’s inspector
general to investigate what went wrong.
The
Justice Department didn’t respond to a request for comment Friday morning but
Homeland Security officials said Mr. Johnson has asked his department’s
inspector general to investigate what went wrong.
Homeland
Security officials also said they’re going back to try to revoke the three-year
permits and reissue them as two-year permits instead.
Judge
Hanen had already been pondering whether to sanction the Justice Department
lawyers after they admitted to misleading him — they said inadvertently — on
more than 100,000 amnesty applications approved between the Nov. 20 date Mr.
Obama announced the new program and the Feb. 16 date the judge issued his
injunction.
Thursday’s
filing, however, appears to be worse, since it breaks a direct injunction, and
comes two months after the judge began to scrutinize the administration
lawyers’ behavior after that first instance.
The
lawyers also had to correct a previous number they’d given the court, when
they’d said just 55 applications had been approved in the immediate aftermath
of the injunction. The actual number, the lawyers admitted, was 72. They blamed
“additional errors.”
The
Justice Department said it learned Wednesday that Homeland Security had
approved the applications. The lawyers waited until nearly midnight Thursday to inform Judge Hanen.
In their
filing, they said they are still trying to gather information about what went
wrong, and promised to update Judge Hanen by May 15.
Last week
the administration turned over documents related to how it got the initial
processing of the more than 100,000 applications wrong — but told the judge
that neither he nor the state of Texas, the chief plaintiff that sued to stop
the amnesty, should be allowed to look at the documents because they are
privileged communications.
Mr. Obama
announced the amnesty last year, expanding on a previous amnesty for Dreamers,
or young adult illegal immigrants. That initial program, known as Deferred
Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, granted Dreamers a two-year stay of
deportation and work permits allowing them legally to take jobs in the U.S.
Under the
expansion, illegal immigrant parents of American citizens and green card
holders were allowed to apply for the same program, under a program known as
Deferred Action for Parental Accountability, or DAPA. The two-year period was
also expanded to three years for both Dreamers and the expanded pool of
parents.
Those
three-year permits were what landed the government in trouble. The Homeland
Security Department began approving DACA applicants for three-year work permits
almost immediately, though it didn’t approve any DAPA applications.
Judge
Hanen said he was surprised that the three-year applications were being
approved, since he thought the administration had told him none of the new
program was in effect. Justice Department lawyers said they hadn’t mean to
mislead him, and had included in their briefing papers documents showing that
the three-year approvals were to take effect last November — but apologized
nonetheless for leaving the wrong impression.
Ben Ferro (editor)
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