President Obama's new deportation amnesty will impose "billions of dollars in costs" on states, they told a federal court this week — including more than $130 for each Texas driver's license issued to illegal immigrants under the policy.
More than 1,100 pages of documents submitted by Texas and two dozen other states suing to stop the amnesty detail the costs in depth, and include sworn affidavits from state officials, federal immigration officers and others arguing that the amnesty will increase illegal immigration, leaving the states with even bigger burdens.
Wisconsin said the illegal immigrants granted amnesty would be eligible to apply for concealed weapons permits at a cost to state taxpayers. Indiana said it will end up paying unemployment benefits to the illegal immigrants. And in Texas, officials said they'll have to hire more than 100 new employees to process hundreds of thousands of driver's license applications, with state taxpayers shelling out more than $130 per applicant.
"The states will lose money," Texas, which is leading the lawsuit, told Judge Andrew Hanen in legal papers.
Judge Hanen, who sits in Brownsville, Texas, will hear oral arguments in the case Thursday, with the fate of Mr. Obama's most ambitious executive action to date riding on the outcome.
The case turns on two key factors: first, whether Texas and the 24 other states that have joined the lawsuit can show they or their residents stand to suffer from the president's policies; and second, whether Mr. Obama's actions go beyond case-by-case discretion and tread on Congress' power to write laws and set policy.
Texas and its fellow states argue the licenses and other benefits prove they will suffer, which means they have "standing" to sue in court.
They also painted a compelling picture of the program as a rubber-stamp rather than the careful case-by-case decisions the Obama administration claims.
Texas says a 95 percent approval rate for applicants for the existing amnesty for so-called Dreamers shows the program is a rubber stamp. The state even filed an affidavit to that effect from Kenneth Palinkas, head of the labor union of officers who process the applications.
"Leadership has intentionally stopped proper screening and enforcement and, in so doing, it has guaranteed that applications will be rubber-stamped for approval, a practice that virtually guarantees widespread fraud and places public safety at risk," Mr. Palinkas said.
Texas also says the administration has repeatedly hurt its own case with the way it's gone about attacking states that have cracked down on illegal immigration, while trying to make its own amnesty programs as generous as possible.
In one instance, the administration argues that states don't have to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants — thus saying there's no financial burden to states from the amnesty. But the administration is currently arguing in another case out of Arizona that states must issue driver's licenses to those granted the amnesty and work permits.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has sided with the administration, meaning that all of the states under its jurisdiction, including three of the plaintiff states in the Texas case, do not have a choice.
In another example, Texas submitted the declaration of a labor economist who said that because the illegal immigrants would become legal workers but still aren't eligible for Obamacare, they are cheaper to hire for some businesses. Texas said that's exactly the kind of "economic harm" that courts are allowed to step in and fight.
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