In November 2014, The Obama administration announced a proposal to try and grant a proactive three-year stay of deportation and legal work permits to as many as 5 million illegal immigrants. As a result, the state of Texas led a large group of states suing the government, arguing the proposal violated both federal law and overstepped the president's constitutional powers – in which Judge Andrew S. Hanen agreed with.
Judge Hanen halted the amnesty just days before it was to begin accepting applications in February 2015, however, as the Washington Times reports, the administration was approving amnesty applications during that time, which Justice Department lawyers hid from the court. To make matters worse, even after the court ordered a halt to the whole amnesty proposal, the Department of Homeland Security approved several thousand more applications, in direct defiance of the court's order, and something that was not admitted to the court until much later.
"The decision of the lawyers who apparently determined that these three-year renewals under the 2014 DHS Directive were not covered by the Plaintiff States' pleadings was clearly unreasonable. The conduct of the lawyers who then covered up this decision was even worse." Judge Hanen wrote.
In writing the ruling, Hanen quoted from the scene in "Miracle on 34th Street" when the boy is called to testify to Santa's existence and saying that everyone knows not to tell a lie to the court. Hanen went on to say that that the Justice Department lawyers have an even stricter duty: Tell the truth, don't mislead the court, and don't allow it to be mislead by others.
"The Government's lawyers failed on all three fronts. The actions of the DHS should have been brought as early as December 19, 2014. The failure of counsel to do that constituted more than mere inadvertent omissions – it was intentionally deceptive." Judge Hanen wrote in his ruling.
In court, the government lawyers admitted they'd left the judge with the wrong impression, and expressed regret and sorrow.
Judge Hanen thought about imposing financial penalty on the government, but since taxpayers would end up footing the bill it seemed pointless. Instead, in what may be the greatest court ordered ruling ever, Hanen ordered the the lawyers at the DOJ's headquarters in Washington who practice in any of the 26 states that sued over amnesty to take at least three hours of remedial ethics training a year.
And to top it off, Hanen ordered that the classes must be "taught by at least one recognized ethics expert who is unaffiliated with the Justice Department."
All we have to say about that is bravo Judge Hanen, well played. However, is there a way to somehow extend that order to all elected officials?
via http://ift.tt/1W6HlkR Tyler Durden