No doubt you have all heard about the injunction against the Obama administration's deferred action directive regarding undocumented aliens issued by a Brownsville, Texas federal district judge.
While the Memorandum and Opinion justifying that order is a smorgasbord of derp, its central argument finding that the challenging states (including Texas) have standing is quite something:
The States allege that the DHS Directive will directly cause significant economic injury to their fiscal interests. Specifically, Texas argues that the DHS Directive will create a new class of individuals eligible to apply for driver's licenses, 14 the processing of which will impose substantial costs on its budget. [...] As Defendants concede, "a direct and genuine injury to a State's own proprietary interests may give rise to standing." [. . .] Defendants in this case argue, however, that the projected costs to Plaintiffs'. [. . . ] driver's license programs are "self-inflicted" because the DHS Directive does not directly require states to provide any state benefits to deferred action recipients, and because states can adjust their benefit programs to avoid incurring these costs.This assertion, however, evaluates the DHS Directive in a vacuum. Further, this claim is, at best, disingenuous. Although the terms of DAPA do not compel states to provide any benefits to deferred action recipients, it is clear that the DHS Directive will nonetheless affect state programs. Specifically, in the wake of the Ninth Circuit's decision in Arizona Dream Act Coalition v. Brewer, it is apparent that the federal government will compel compliance by all states regarding the issuance of driver's licenses to recipients of deferred action. 757 F.3d 1053 (9th Cir. 2014).No doubt you are asking yourself, wait a second, isn't Texas in the Fifth Circuit, not the Ninth? You would be correct. But derp can't be bothered with facts and logic.In Arizona Dream Act Coalition v. Brewer, the plaintiffs, DACA beneficiaries, sought an injunction to prevent the defendants from enforcing an Arizona policy that denied driver's licenses to recipients of deferred action. Id. at 1060. Necessary for the imposition of an injunction, the Ninth Circuit examined whether the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their case, and focused on the fact that Arizona's driver's license program permitted other non-citizens to use employment authorization documents to obtain driver's licenses-the same documentation that would be conferred upon DAPA recipients. Id. at 1064. Finding that this policy likely discriminated against similarly-situated parties in violation of the Equal Protection Clause, the court enjoined the defendants from denying driver's licenses to deferred action beneficiaries. Id. at 1069.
Head below the fold for some clarification.
