The White House is confident the Supreme Court will uphold President Obama’s executive actions to shield as many as 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation.
“We’ve got a lot of confidence in the legal arguments that we’ll be making before the court,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday.
{mosads}He called the executive actions “clearly consistent with the precedent established by other presidents, and clearly within the confines of his authority as the president of the United States.”
Earnest also cited support from 15 states and law enforcement officials in Texas who believe that the measures will make their communities safer.
The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it would hear a case challenging the executive actions, nearly one year after a federal judge in Texas halted them.
When asked about the prospects of immigrants in the country illegally taking advantage — considering that they would become vulnerable to deportation if a Republican president is elected — Earnest brought up the administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals that went into effect in 2012.
“The president announced these executive actions in an election year, in 2012, and there were some who suggested that there might not be a significant number of people who’d sign up for this program because it could be reversed by a president who succeeded Barack Obama,” he said.
“We’ve actually seen a pretty strong take-up rate when it comes to these Dream Act protections” by immigrants who came to the United States as children, Earnest added.