The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear President Barack Obama's appeal against a legal action blocking his executive actions protecting more than four million illegal immigrants from deportation.
The appeal, to be ruled on by the end of June, will be one of the court's most significant hearings of this term. It comes against the backdrop of a bitter presidential campaign during which Republicans have blasted Mr Obama for his unilateral actions bypassing Congress.
In the absence of Capitol Hill lawmakers passing legislation overhauling a broken immigration system – a high priority on Mr Obama’s wish-list – the president acted alone in 2014 in introducing executive orders that, it is estimated, shielded more than a third of America’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants from deportation.
The plan was designed to help the long-term “undocumented” who have no criminal record and whose children are American citizens, including many Irish who have lived illegally in the US for years.
The measures were blocked by the lower courts after Texas and 25 other states, mostly led by Republicans, challenged their legality.
In November the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, upheld a February 2015 injunction by a Texas district court judge blocking the immigration plan. This led to the Obama administration filing an appeal with the Supreme Court.
The White House has argued that Mr Obama has grounds to introduce the measures because the states have no right to challenge policy in federal court, the administration followed proper procedures and the president has discretion to act on immigration.
Texas attorney general Ken Paxton said the Supreme Court “should affirm what President Obama said himself on more than 20 occasions: that he cannot unilaterally rewrite congressional laws and circumvent the people’s representatives”.
Immigrant rights activists welcomed the court’s decision to hear the appeal as it raises the prospect of the measures being passed before the president leaves office in January 2017.
Mr Obama, who has little or no hope of passing legislation in the Republican-led Congress, has turned to executive actions to push his agenda. White House chief of staff Denis McDonough has said the president is planning “audacious” executive actions in his final year.
The president introduced new gun controls this month, expanding background checks on certain purchases of firearms in response to the epidemic of gun violence that claims 30,000 American lives every year.
