Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is happy about the Supreme Court's 4-4 split decision on President Barack Obama's immigration plan to spare millions of immigrants in the United States illegally from deportation while granting them work permits, but he said Friday he'd be celebrating even more if late Justice Antonin Scalia was still around to break the vote.
"It is a victory for the state of Texas, and it did uphold the Fifth Circuit," Abbott told Fox News'
"America's Newsroom" program. "The Constitution is a clear winner. We are at a constitutional tipping point in this country where the president has been trying to write laws. The Supreme Court shut down that possibility."
The Supreme Court did not rule on the merits of the main legal question and did not set a legal precedent that could bind presidents in the future, but instead indicated that any policy change affecting the immigrants' long-term situation would have to go through Congress, and the fact that four of the justices ruled in favor of Obama's side troubles Abbott.
"It's disturbing that we have four justices who think you don't have to go through Congress when article 1 of the Constitution clearly says only Congress can write immigration laws," said the governor.
Abbott on Friday also drew some parallels between the views of Texans on immigration and the United Kingdom's historic vote to withdraw from the European Union.
"There have been some immigration challenges here in the U.S., not just Texas, but up and down our border and the entire country," said Abbott. "We have seen for months if not years, immigration issues bubble up . . . It's a question of whether we are going to protect the sovereignty we were meant to have."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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