McCain: Supreme Court must resolve Obama’s immigration orders

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) believes the case challenging President Obama’s executive action on immigration will eventually reach the Supreme Court.  

The decision by a federal judge last week to temporarily halt Obama’s 2014 executive action also provides an “exit sign” for the Senate to go ahead and pass a Homeland Security Department funding bill, he added. 

“We now have an exit sign,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “And that is the federal court decision saying that the president’s actions unilaterally are unconstitutional.  And I think we’ve got a great argument to hand to the Supreme Court, where it will go.”

The Obama administration has vowed to seek an emergency stay of a federal judge’s ruling, which halted the expansion of a program that allows some immigrants who came to the country illegally to get deferrals from deportation and work permits.

The case must be appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals before making it to the high court. 

McCain said the best way to resolve the issue is through the courts rather than Congress. As in previous interviews, he suggested but did not explicitly support passage of a clean DHS funding bill without riders to defund the order. 

He expressed outrage over Obama’s executive action last year, nonetheless. 

“So I think that’s the best way that we can resolve this,” he said about the court system. “But have no doubt: I am angry, as are my constituents in a border state, that the president of the United States would unconstitutionally issue the executive orders that he did.” 

Congress has a Friday deadline before the funding runs out for DHS, which could sideline about 15 percent of the agency while other essential employees would be forced to work without pay until new resources are approved.  

House Republicans passed a funding bill in January, but action has stalled in the Senate because of Democratic opposition to riders that would defund a set of President Obama’s executive actions on deportation.