Related: Clock Ticks on Obama Administration Appeal of Ruling in Immigration Case
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, said it “would be speedy” if the justices heard the case this term in time for a decision before Obama leaves office in January 2017. “My guess is the Supreme Court won’t do it with any haste,” he said.
Flake was one of the eight senators to push through the chamber a comprehensive immigration reform bill in 2013. The bill died in the House of Representatives last summer, prompting Obama in November 2014 to announce his executive action deferring deportations of undocumented parents of permanent residents. Texas filed suit the next month in the Southern District of Texas.
“I wish [the Fifth Circuit decision] would prompt the Congress to actually do immigration reform. I don’t know if it’s good for anybody if it doesn’t prompt reform,” Flake said.
Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, sees no opportunity for Congress to take up reform this Congress, even with a Republican majority in the Senate and a new House Speaker in Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin. “I think we’re going to need a new president in order to fix our broken immigration system,” Cornyn said.
Among the Republican hopefuls for the presidency is Cornyn’s fellow Texas Republican, Sen. Ted Cruz. Cruz’s former Judiciary Committee chief counsel, Scott Keller, briefed, argue, and won the case against Obama’s immigration action as the Texas solicitor general. Keller, a former clerk for Justice Anthony Kennedy, left Washington for Austin in December to take Cruz’s old job as the state’s top appellate advocate.
