A federal judge’s decision to permanently require Arizona to issue driver’s licenses to immigrants who have been granted deferred action from deportation marks another significant victory for the Obama administration in its effort to exert executive power over immigration in the face of opposition by various state governments.

US District Judge David Campbell issued a permanent injunction Thursday blocking measures endorsed by Arizona officials that had been designed to prevent so-called Dreamers from obtaining state-issued driver’s licenses.

Licenses have been issued under a preliminary injunction for the past month to participants in President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Recommended: Could you pass a US citizenship test?

The new permanent injunction requires Arizona to grant driver’s licenses to any would-be immigrant who has been issued employment authorization by the federal government.

The ruling means that as many as 80,000 Dreamers in Arizona can receive licenses that will allow them to drive to and from work and lead more comfortable and normal lives despite their unsettled immigration status.  

In 2012, the Obama administration announced that it would defer deportation for a category of young US residents who entered the US illegally with their parents. In November, President Obama announced that he was expanding the deferred action program to include up to five million of the estimated 11 million residents believed to be in the US without legal authorization.

Some 25 states are suing the Obama administration in federal court in Texas, arguing that the president’s unilateral action violates the separation of powers and exceeds other constitutional checks on executive authority.

The judge in that case held a hearing last week and is expected to rule soon on a requested injunction to block the president’s executive actions on immigration.

The Arizona driver’s license case was brought by a coalition of immigrants, who complained that the ban on licenses violated the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection.

Judge Campbell agreed. He noted in his 20-page decision that Arizona refused to accept federal work authorization documents issued to Dreamers, even though the state had long accepted those same documents for other immigrants seeking driver’s licenses.

“The Court is not saying that the Constitution requires the State of Arizona to grant driver’s licenses to all noncitizens,” Judge Campbell wrote. “But if the State chooses to confer licenses on some individuals who have been temporarily authorized to stay [in the US] by the federal government, it may not deny them to similarly situated individuals without a rational basis for the distinction.”

The judge concluded that the state had failed to offer a rational reason for treating the two groups differently.

Arizona has long been a battleground between the Obama administration’s more permissive immigration approach and the state’s attempt to crack down on illegal immigration.

The battle reached the US Supreme Court in 2012, where the majority justices struck down several state measures that they said interfered with the administration’s broad discretion over immigration and the status of non-citizens in the US.

The driver’s license issue also went to the Supreme Court in an interlocutory appeal last month. Arizona asked the high court to allow the state to continue to refuse to issue driver’s licenses to the Dreamers.

The court declined the request, opening the way for the state to begin issuing licenses. Three justices – Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito – would have granted the state’s request.

State officials are reviewing whether to appeal Campbell’s injunction.

The case is Arizona Dream Act Coalition v. Brewer (12cv2546). 

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• Politics & Government
• Immigration Issues
• President Obama
• the Obama administration
• Arizona
• driver’s licenses

By Daniel Trotta

HAVANA (Reuters) – The United States and Cuba clashed over immigration policy on Wednesday at the first session of high-level talks seeking to restore diplomatic ties between the Cold War adversaries.

Despite Havana’s objections, the Americans vowed to continue granting Cuban immigrants special status that allows nearly every Cuban reaching U.S. soil to remain in the country, while nationals of other countries are deported if they arrive under similar circumstances.

The talks will continue on Thursday with the two sides set to discuss restoring diplomatic relations and eventually opening up full trade and travel ties.

The two days of meetings are the first since U.S. President Barack Obama and his Cuban counterpart Raul Castro announced on Dec. 17 they had reached a historic breakthrough after 18 months of secret negotiations.

“We explained to the Cuban government that our government is completely committed to upholding the Cuban Adjustment Act, that the sets of migration-related policies that are colloquially known as wet foot/dry foot very much remain in effect,” State Department official Alex Lee, who led the immigration talks for the Americans, told reporters.

Under that policy, Cubans who are stopped by U.S. law-enforcement officials at sea are returned to Cuba, while those who step foot in the country are allowed to stay.

The leader of the Cuban side, foreign ministry official Josefina Vidal, reiterated Cuba’s opposition to U.S. immigration law and policy, telling reporters the unique treatment promotes illegal immigration, people-trafficking and dangerous journeys across the Florida Straits on flimsy vessels.

Obama has set the United States on a path toward removing economic sanctions and a 53-year-old trade embargo against the communist-ruled island.

“We are ending a policy that was long past its expiration date. When what you’re doing doesn’t work for 50 years, it’s time to try something new,” he told Congress in his annual State of the Union address on Tuesday.

He also urged Congress to start work on ending the embargo but critics at home say Obama first needs to win concessions on Cuban political prisoners and democratic rights, the claims of U.S. citizens whose property was nationalized after Cuba’s 1959 revolution, and U.S. fugitives who have been given asylum in Cuba.

The U.S. delegation is led by Roberta Jacobson, the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America, who did not participate in the immigration discussion. When she landed in Havana on Wednesday, she became the first U.S. assistant secretary of state to visit Cuba in 38 years.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Nick Macfie, Kieran Murray and Alan Crosby)

• Politics & Government
• Foreign Policy
• Cuba
• Barack Obama
• immigration policy

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — The European Union should adopt strict rules regarding immigration and asylum seekers should return to their countries of origin after the crises there have passed, Hungary’s government spokesman said Tuesday.

Spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said Hungary would maintain its own tough rules regarding immigration to avoid issues “existing in some Western European countries.”

“We are going to insist on a strict, common European policy on migration,” said Kovacs, highlighting the steep rise in migrants reaching Hungary.

Over 42,700 people sought asylum in Hungary in 2014, up from 18,900 in 2013, according to the Office of Immigration and Nationality. Last year, Hungary approved 503 asylum requests, little more than 1 percent of the total.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban called the rising asylum-seeker figures “alarming,” saying many were really economic migrants, not people fleeing persecution.

“This is a Christian country, there is mercy in our hearts and it is obvious that the persecuted need to be helped,” Orban said Sunday on state radio. “But we have to say no to subsistence immigrants and make clear that they won’t find their livelihood here.”

Analyst Tamas Boros of Policy Solutions said the issue of immigration, raised after the France attacks earlier this month, was being used by the government to steer attention away from several unpopular measures introduced recently. Those included an expanded road toll system, a decision forcing most retail shops to close Sundays and a proposal to give mandatory drug tests to children 12 and older, he said.

Street protests against government corruption, education policies and other matters have been held recurrently since October, when the government said it wanted to tax Internet use, a plan it later shelved.

• Immigration Issues
• Politics & Government
• BUDAPEST, Hungary
• European Union
• government spokesman