Obama says court ruling on immigration plan ‘heartbreaking’

The US Supreme Court delivered a fatal blow to US president Barack Obama’s stalled plan to shield from deportation more than four million “undocumented” immigrants, including Irish people living illegally for a long time in the US.

The eight-judge court, gridlocked by Republican opposition to Mr Obama's nominee to fill the vacant ninth position left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, were tied 4-4 in a ruling on the legality of his 2014 unilateral immigration actions.

The ruling leaves in place a lower court ruling that blocks the measures and will likely end Mr Obama’s hopes of applying his temporary, half-measure alternative to comprehensive immigration reform, a long-standing ambition of his presidency.

Speaking to reporters afterwards at the White House, Mr Obama said that the court’s “heartbreaking” decision did not just set the immigration system back further but “takes us further from the country that we aspire to be.”

He promised that the decision would not change the US administration’s stance on immigration enforcement, saying that long-term, law-abiding unauthorised immigrants were a low priority for deportation.

“As long as you have not committed a crime, our limited law enforcement resources are not focused on you,” he said.

The ruling, however, will prevent illegal immigrants who have US-born citizen children, have been in the US for at least five years and have not committed any felonies or misdemeanours from applying for work permits under Mr Obama’s proposed Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, or DAPA programme.

He unveiled the programme in 2014 but it was blocked by a Texas judge in 2015 after 26 states accused Mr Obama of abusing the power of his office by bypassing Congress with his executive actions and imposing an undue burden on them.

That ruling was affirmed by a circuit court in November and again by the Supreme Court.

Mr Obama introduced the measures after years of frustration with Republicans in the House of Representatives who refused to support a bipartisan bill overhauling the country’s immigration laws that passed the Senate in 2013.

The president directed his exasperation at Republicans again after the ruling for refusing to consider Judge Merrick Garland, his Supreme Court nominee, and said that the party’s freezing of the status quo was “not a sustainable strategy.”

Mr Obama urged voters to consider the immigration policies of the presidential candidates when casting their votes in November’s election to pick his successor.

“Sooner or later, immigration will get done,” he predicted, noting the US tradition of accepting immigrants as citizens throughout its history.

“Every study shows that whether it was the Irish or the Poles, or the Germans, or the Italians, or the Chinese, or the Japanese, or the Mexicans, or the Kenyans - whoever showed up, over time, by the second generation, third generation - those kids are American,” Mr Obama said.

Plans to deport 11 million immigrants or to build a wall along the Mexican border - as proposed by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump - were "fantasy," he said.

Mr Trump said the court’s split decision “makes clear what is at stake in November.”

He continued: “The election and the Supreme Court appointments that come with it will decide whether or not we have a border and, hence, a country.”

Hillary Clinton, his likely Democratic rival in the election, has vowed to extend Mr Obama's executive actions to help undocumented immigrants and wants comprehensive immigration reform passed by Congress.

Irish reaction

Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan said he was disappointed that the action “which might have benefited many of the Irish undocumented, will not now go ahead.” He said “achieving relief for the undocumented Irish” remained a “key objective” for the Government which would contine to work with Irish immigration activists and “our friends on Capitol Hill”.

The ruling would “prolong the agony of millions of immigrants and their families living in the shadows, and highlights the continued need for common sense immigration reform,” said Emerald Isle Immigration Center said executive director Siobhan Dennehy.

“This was a last beacon of hope for so many who would benefit in a positive way,” Ms Dennehy said.

The Coalition of Irish Immigration Centers was “disheartened” by the ruling which “leaves millions of undocumented people in the US, many Irish among them, living with uncertainty and fear”.

"It is past time for the United States to address its broken immigration system, and CIIC will continue to promote the need for comprehensive immigration reform with the new administration and Congress in the coming year." Its president Celine Kennelly said.