A George W. Bush-appointed federal district judge in Pennsylvania has turned a routine sentencing issue into an opportunity to declare all of President Obama's executive actions on immigration unconstitutional.
From ThinkProgress:
Because the policy “may” apply to a defendant who was awaiting sentencing of a criminal immigration violation, Judge Arthur Schwab decides that he must determine “whether the Executive Action is constitutional.” He concludes that it is not.
The
criminal case involved a Honduran immigrant who pleaded guilty to illegally crossing the border.
Both the court-appointed lawyer representing Elionardo Juarez-Escobar and the assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting him had taken the position in their briefs to the court that the executive action wouldn’t apply to Juarez-Escobar since his is a criminal matter and the executive action addresses civil proceedings.
Judge Arthur Schwab seems to be stuck on Obama. He spends three pages of analysis quoting the president's own declarations that these actions aren't constitutional (perhaps that was deserved) but then concludes his quotes have no actual bearing on the constitutionality of the actions.
Then there's this:
Noting that Obama cited Congress’s failure to act on immigration in his speech announcing the new policy, Schwab devotes half of his analysis of the policy’s constitutionality to explaining that “Inaction by Congress Does Not Make Unconstitutional Executive Action Constitutional.”
Schwab ultimately concludes that Obama's initiative "Goes beyond prosecutorial discretion—It is Legislation." Powerful.
Notably, however, Schwab cites no judicial precedents of any kind to support this conclusion.
Oh, ok, not so powerful.