Georgia joins lawsuit against Obama's immigration executive orders

Georgia is one of 17 states suing President Barack Obama over his recent executive orders granting deportation relief to 5 million undocumented immigrants.  The coalition is led by Texas Attoey General and Goveor-elect Greg Abbott (R), who filed the lawsuit on Wednesday at the Federal Court in the Southe District of Texas.

"I'm here to announce a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas against the United States of America…" said Abbott at the press conference on Wednesday.  "On November 20^th, 2014, the president announced that he would unilaterally suspend significant parts of the U.S. immigration laws.  After he did so, the president candidly admitted, and I quote, 'I just took action to change the law.' Article 2 sec 3 was added to the Constitution to prevent this very type of conduct by a president.

"The president's job is to execute the laws, not de facto make law by suspending parts of laws that are passed by Congress."

The 17-state coalition includes Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

President Obama said that his immigration executive orders were necessary because Congress has refused to act on immigration. Although none of the orders grant legal status to any immigrants in the country illegally, it shields up to 5 million from deportations and allows some to get a work permit.  Many Republicans maintain that such action from the president violates the Constitution.

During the Wednesday press conference, Abbott outlined three ways in which the immigration executive action is unlawful:

"violates the Take Care Clause of U.S. Constitution,

"violates Article 1, Section 8 of U.S. Constitution,

"violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA)."

The "take care clause" requires the president to "take due care" when executing laws. The Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4 grants Congress the power to establish "rule of naturalization," which is the process through which immigrants become citizens. The Administrative Procedure Act (APA) overseas how "administrative agencies" establish rules and regulations that affect the public. APA was enacted to hold the federal agencies accountable.  

Abbott said that the immigration system is broken and needs to be fixed, but all of it should be done by Congress not by the president alone.