House and Senate Democrats will file an amicus brief backing President Obama’s executive actions on immigration, which are under review by the Supreme Court.
Democrats announced Tuesday that they’ll file a brief that “underscores President Obama’s common-sense immigration executive actions are authorized by existing laws passed by the Congress of the United States.”
The brief is signed by 186 House Democrats and 39 Senate Democrats. It comes a week after House Republicans said they would vote on a House resolution authorizing the chamber to file a Supreme Court amicus brief against the president’s executive actions on immigration, which the GOP believes is not constitutional and violates the power given to Congress to write laws.
President Obama had moved to stop the deportation of thousands of illegal immigrants whose children he has permitted to remain in the country under an earlier executive action.
The president’s action ending the deportation of the parents of those children has been blocked by a lower court following a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas, and supported by 25 other states.
Democrats said in a statement Tuesday that President Obama’s executive actions were needed because Republicans in Congress would not take up comprehensive immigration reform, which would have paved the way to legalizing 11 million immigrants.
“We should embrace their contributions,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said of the illegal immigrants in a statement. “We are confident the Supreme Court will recognize the legality and necessity of the president’s actions to help bring our immigration system back into line with the values and needs of our country.”
