Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. voted twice to save President Barack Obama's health care law. With that, conservatives are nervous that the Chief Justice will disappoint them again in a challenge to another major Obama initiative on immigration.
According to Tampabay, the case at the Supreme Court represents vital questions about the executive power against the backdrop of a tugging national debate over the U.S. President's plan to spare millions of immigrants from deportation. But the Chief Justice's record suggests that Roberts may avoid taking a position in the divisive and partisan issue.
The issue focuses on the more technical question. It asks whether the states challenging Obama administration's immigration plan have struggled the sort of direct and concrete injury that gives them standing to sue.
The New York Times reported that the jusrisprudential turn-off would prevent the standstill or the pronouncement from an understaffed court on a politically charged issue in a presidential election year. Also, that may have drawn the Chief Justice's attention. He even stated that he does not want the Supreme Court to be viewed as a forum where "partisan matters would be worked out."
A constricted decision would also echo Chief Justice Robet's 2012 opinion. He sustained the central feature of the health care law on the grounds calibrated that no other justice joined all of his opinions.
The President's immigration program, which is the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA), has split the 2016 presidential candidates. The Republicans claimed they would reverse it if it took effect, while the Democrats said that they would expand upon the program.
The DAPA would enable illegal immigrants in the affected categories to remain in the U.S. and apply for work permits if they have been in the country for at least five years and have not committed felonies and misdemeanors. Obama declared that the executive action in November 2014 after the House Republicans did not act on the comprehensive immigration reform, as mentioned in The Washington Post.
Meanwhile, a tie vote, would leave the order hindering the plan and would probably decline Obama's plan of reviving it. But the trial judge ruled that the Obama administration should have given notice of the plan and sought public comments regarding its new program.
