What would we do without Jonathan Adler, whom AmericanHealthLine names today one of the top 14 “movers and shakers” in health care in 2014 because his legal analysis led to the upcoming Supreme Court case on Obamacare’s state subsidies that may blow the ACA sky high. Anyway, Jon flags a U.S. District Court opinion out this morning that finds Obama’s immigration executive action exceeds the proper understanding of “prosecutorial discretion”: According to the opinion by Judge Arthur Schwab, the president’s policy goes “beyond prosecutorial discretion” in that it provides a relatively rigid framework for considering applications for deferred action, thus obviating any meaningful case-by-case determination as prosecutorial discretion requires, and provides substantive rights to applicable individuals. As a consequence, Schwab concluded, the action exceeds the scope of executive authority.
This is the first judicial opinion to address Obama’s decision to expand deferred action for some individuals unlawfully present in the United States.
Jon goes on to explain more on the background of the case. The full 38-page opinion is here.(PDF)
