Dreamer Sues To Unblock The President's Biggest Immigration Proposal Yet

NEW YORK ' An undocumented student who has lived in New York for nearly 20 years wants a federal court to declare that the presidents plan to defer deportation for millions like him should be reinstated.Queens resident Martn Batalla Vidal, a recipient of President Barack Obamas initial deferred action program, filed a federal lawsuit Thursday alleging that a national injunction that barred its expansionis way too broad to be legal.A federal judge in Texas had blocked implementation of the planlast year, leading to an appeals battle that ended up all the way before the Supreme Court. But the justices were evenly split in the case, leaving the original injunction in place.Im filing this lawsuit for myself and the thousands of others like me who have been wronged by this judges decision, said Batalla Vidal in a statement accompanying the lawsuits announcement.A spokesman for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, which was named as a defendant in the case, declined to comment on the case because its deemed pending litigation.Batalla Vidals legal effort aims to narrow the scope of the original order that left millions of undocumented immigrants like him in the lurch.When U.S. District Judge Andrew ruled in the Texas case, the federal government had no choice but to stop Obamas immigration proposal dead in its tracks ' even in the 24 states that did not join Texas lawsuit over the policies, including New York, which favors deferred action.The National Immigration Law Center, Make the Road New York and the immigrant rights clinic at Yale Law School are supporting Batalla Vidal in the litigation.It is unclear to what extent, if at all, this lawsuit might be affected by a separate move the Obama administration made last month asking the Supreme Court to revisit the deadlocked immigration case.Stephen Legomsky, a law professor at Washington University specializing in immigration law, said in an email that the students chances are hard to predict, but that otherwise the case law is clearthat court orders like the one Hanen issued shouldnt be so broad that innocent parties take a hit.A court decision that finds the nationwide injunction improper could support future challenges to the other terms of the same injunction ' especially the part that enjoins all of [Obamas executive actions], said Legomsky, also former chief counsel at USCIS. So there is a great deal at stake. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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