The battle between federal district court Judge Andrew Hanen and the Obama administration over the president’s executive orders on immigration ratcheted up Tuesday. Hanen issued a second order this week that charged that the Justice Department lawyers had “misrepresented the facts” and demanded they turn over all information related to their response to his original injunction.

Hanen’s scathing critique of the administration’s handling of immigration since his injunction in February faulted the president and the Justice Department for what he suggested were illegal tactics. The administration, Hanen contended, has deliberately undermined the rule of law in regard to immigration enforcement. CNS News provides a summary of his key arguments:

According to Hanen, Obama’s message to federal law enforcement officials and the nation “is clear.”  First, federal immigration laws that “officials are charged with enforcing, are not to be enforced when those laws conflict” with the president’s plan.  Second, “the criteria set out in [the president’s plan] are mandatory.”  Third, if Department of Homeland Security officials “fail to follow the specified criteria, there will be consequences for this failure–just as there would be consequences if they were in the military and disobeyed an order from the Commander in Chief.”

In summary, “the chief Executive has ordered that the laws requiring removal of illegal immigrants that conflict with [the president’s plan] are not to be enforced, and that anyone who attempts to do so will be punished.”

Hanen also dismissed the government’s claim that it would suffer irreparable harm if the injunction is not lifted, arguing that it could not demonstrate any pressing need for its executive amnesty program.

Hanen’s order also directly took on the Justice Department lawyers, whom he accused of showing a “distinct lack of candor” in what appears to be their deliberate misrepresentation of the implementation of the president’s program:

This Court expects all parties, including the Government of the United States, to act in a forthright manner and not hide behind deceptive representations and half-truths.  That is why , whatever the motive for the Government’s actions in this matter, the Court is extremely troubled by the multiple representations made by the Government’s counsel – both in writing and orally – that no actionwould be taken … until February 18, 2015.

Hanen faulted the lawyers for failing to inform him of the delayed response to his injunction from the Justice Department – which had insisted that it took “prompt” action – doing “nothing to inform the Court” of the over 100,000 immigrants granted deferrals during the two-week gap in response to his order:

If this Court had ruled according to the Government’s requested schedule, it would have ruled without the Court or the States knowing that the Government had granted 108,081 applications … despite its multiple representations to the contrary … Yet they stood silent.  Even worse, they urged this Court to rule before disclosing that the Government had already issued 108,081 three-year renewals … despite their statement to the contrary.

Calling their after-the-fact explanations “disingenuous,” Hanen said the Justice Department lawyers had failed to follow the American Bar Association’s professional ethics standards:

Fabrications, misstatements, half-truths, artful omissions, and the failure to correct misstatements may be acceptable, albeit lamentable, in other aspects of life; but in the courtroom, when an attorney knows that both the Court and the other side are relying on complete frankness, such conduct is unacceptable.

Though he argued that their actions could result in his striking of their pleadings, he maintained that the “national significance” of the issue merited the case be pursued, but warned that should they continue to act unethically, he was not “impotent to fashion an appropriate remedy” for their misconduct.

Hanen demanded that the Justice Department provide all information, including “metadata and all other tangible items,” related to the drafts of the March 3, 2015 Advisory. He also warned that no related communication, records, hard drives and servers, be “destroyed or erased,” giving them an April 21 deadline for turning over the information.

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/federal-judge-calls-out-justice-dept-immigration-lies