With a maddening 4-to-4 nondecision announced Thursday, the Supreme Court failed to decide the fate of President Obama's 2014 executive actions on immigration. The program remains blocked — and there is no realistic way to resuscitate it before Obama leaves office.
And so 4 million to 5 million people who might have been spared deportation remain stranded, vulnerable to arrest and unable to work legally.
The case, United States vs. Texas, should never have made it to the Supreme Court. But such is the power of the GOP's spite. Obama wanted to give temporary protection to unauthorized immigrants whose children are citizens or legal residents, and whose clean records made them very low priorities for deportation. It was a reasonable use of prosecutorial discretion, he argued, freeing up resources to deal with criminals and security threats.
Republicans who have attacked Obama at every turn concocted a counterargument. They accused him of abusing his powers, violating administrative law and harming states that would incur incidental expenses under the program. A like-minded federal district judge in Texas blocked the program nationwide. A divided appeals court panel upheld the judge's ruling. The Supreme Court took the case, and deadlocked because the GOP Senate has refused to allow Obama to fill the seat left open by Justice Antonin Scalia's death. The 4-4 vote sets no precedent, nor does it alter Obama's 2012 deportation reprieve for immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.
But Thursday's news was yet another disappointment for the immigrants who had believed Obama when he said, so early and so often in his eight years, that he would protect them. It leaves millions in limbo, although "limbo" is a poor word for a state of fear and frustration.
FROM AN EDITORIAL IN THE NEW YORK TIMES
