Kansas Secretary of State, Kris W. Kobach, explains how last month’s outlandish ruling on Obama’s illegal DACA by a D.C. judge turns the law on its head ~

A few days ago, Judge John Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a decision that was truly shocking.
 
He ruled not only that President Trump is prohibited from repealing President Obama’s DACA (“Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals”) executive amnesty for illegal aliens, but also that President Trump must continue to give the amnesty to new illegal aliens in the future.
 
 

In other words, the unlawful and informal executive action of President Obama is something that President Trump is compelled to carry out against his wishes in the future. Never mind that one President cannot bind his successor to follow his executive decrees and that DACA itself is a violation of federal law.
 
Although two other judges in San Francisco and New York City had previously issued erroneous decisions in favor of DACA in the past, this one was the first decision in which a judge declared that the DACA program must be extended into the future, regardless of the wishes of the current president […]
 

DACA allows virtually any illegal alien up to the age of 31 (as of June 15, 2012, when it was announced) who claims that he entered the United States before the age of 16 to gain “deferred action” and lawful presence in the United States. The alien also becomes eligible for employment authorization. In practice, today illegal aliens up the age of 37 are getting the amnesty. It’s not limited to “children” as the Left loves to imply.

 
The most blatant violation of federal law is found in 8 USC 1225(b)(2). This statute requires that any alien an ICE officer determines to be inadmissible “shall” be placed in removal proceedings. Congress enacted this law in 1996 to stop the “catch and release” policies of the Clinton Administration. But DACA forces ICE agents to break this law. In 2012, in the case of Crane v. Napolitano, I represented ten ICE agents who sued the Obama Administration to stop DACA. Although the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals eventually ruled that the ICE agents didn’t have standing, the district court in the Northern District of Texas had already held that DACA likely violated the law.

 
However, even if the DACA amnesty didn’t violate 8 USC 1225(b)(2), it would still violate the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). In order to implement a program like DACA, Department of Homeland Security would have to promulgate a formal regulation (or “rule”), with notice and public comment, under the requirements of the APA. The Fifth Circuit came to this conclusion in Texas v. United States, a case which resulted in an injunction halting Obama’s second executive amnesty (DAPA, which was based on the same theory as DACA). And the Supreme Court sustained the Fifth Circuit’s decision, splitting 4-4 (prior to Justice Gorsuch’s arrival on the Court).
 

In other words, there is no question that DACA violates federal law. Even President Obama stated publicly, prior to his DACA directive, that he had no legal authority to do what he subsequently did. But then the 2012 election loomed, and Obama was looking for ways to motivate his base. At that point, his concern for following the law went out the window.

America’s founders created three separate branches of government for just such an exigency; so that one branch couldn’t go rogue and usurp power from another. Oops.
Welcome to The United States of Judicial Oligarchy.