States launch legal challenge to Obama’s immigration reforms

TEXAS yesterday led a challenge by 17 states to Barack Obama’s immigration reforms.

Guillaume Fochie from Cameroon and Otoniel Paz from Colombia in Washington.

TEXAS led a group of 17 states yesterday in suing US President Barack Obama’s ­administration over its plan to offer up to five million un­documented migrants protection from deportation.

Texas Attorney-General Greg Abbott said Mr Obama’s unilateral immigration reform plans, unveiled last month to ­bypass congressional gridlock by Republicans, “tramples” on the US constitution.

“The President is abdicating his responsibility to faithfully ­enforce laws that were duly ­enacted by congress and attempting to rewrite immigration laws, which he has no authority to do,” Mr Abbott, who filed the lawsuit, said.

He said Mr Obama’s move “tramples the US Constitution’s Take Care Clause”, which limits a president’s power and ­ensures he will faithfully execute congress’s laws — “not rewrite them under the guise of ‘prosecutorial discretion’ ’’.

AFP