Rounds Joins 42 Senators to File Amicus Brief in Supreme Court Case Challenging Obama Administration’s Immigration Executive Actions

WASHINGTON– U.S. Senator Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), along with 42 of his Senate colleagues, today filed an amicus brief in the United States Supreme Court in support of a challenge by a majority of the nation’s governors and attorneys general of the states, led by the State of Texas, to the Obama Administration’s November 2014 executive actions on immigration. 

“Given that the Executive has asserted that the acts challenged here are not even subject to judicial review, what is at stake in this matter is nothing less than an effort to supplant Congress’s constitutional power to ‘establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.’  Such an action stands in stark contravention to federal law and to the constitutional principle of the separation of powers,” the Senators’ amicus brief states.  “There is little doubt that the Executive adopted the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (“DAPA”) program as part of an explicit effort to circumvent the legislative process.”

The Supreme Court took up this case (United States of America vs. State of Texas) after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in November of 2015 affirmed a preliminary injunction by a federal district court in Brownsville, Texas blocking the Obama Administration from moving forward with its executive actions on immigration that are in violation of federal law.  The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on this case on April 18th.

The 43 senators who joined the amicus brief are Senators Rounds, Alexander, Barrasso, Blunt, Boozman, Capito, Cassidy, Coats, Cochran, Corker, Cornyn, Cotton, Crapo, Cruz, Daines, Enzi, Fischer, Graham, Grassley, Hatch, Hoeven, Inhofe, Isakson, Johnson, Lankford, Lee, McCain, McConnell, Moran, Paul, Perdue, Risch, Roberts, Rubio, Sasse, Scott, Sessions, Shelby, Sullivan, Thune, Tillis, Vitter, and Wicker.