Lamar Smith Aims to Undercut the President’s Power to Stop Deportations

Today marks the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing on Lamar Smith’s controversial “Hinder the Administration’s Legalization Temptation” Act, known as the HALT Act. The hearing will be chaired by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) himself, who continues to draw fire for his harsh, anti-immigrant stances.

The HALT Act would severely limit the President’s right to use discretion in the case of undocumented immigrants, effectively ending the President’s power to protect any immigrant group through deferred action, an exercise of discretion on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). What’s most striking about HALT, however, is that the bill is not intended for all presidents—it would only affect President Obama. Lamar Smith has decided that Obama “can’t be trusted with these powers.” (In other words, the bill would only be in effect until the end of Obama’s Presidency.)

Here’s a brief look at the impact the HALT Act would have on the President’s powers of discretion:

• The DHS could no longer grant deferred action unless an immigrant’s life was imminently threatened, and employment authorization could not be granted.
• The DHS would no longer be able to grant humanitarian parole, meaning immigrants could no longer enter the country for “urgent humanitarian reasons.”
• The DHS could no longer grant deferred action to immigrants whose removal would result in “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" for a spouse, parent, or child in the U.S.
• The DHS could no longer specify countries for Temporary Protected Status, regardless of extreme circumstances.
• Any deferred action granted from the time of HALT’s introduction to its passage would be reversed.

It’s ironic that Lamar Smith should be so concerned with undercutting the President’s powers to protect undocumented individuals, especially as the current administration continues to remove a record number of immigrants from the country. As Campus Progress has previously reported, Obama’s deportation numbers remains unprecedented, in spite of claims of a focused approach that prioritizes the removal of those who have committed violent crimes. Latino youth went as far as to interrupt President Obama’s speech on Monday at the National Council de la Raza conference, yelling “Yes You Can!” in response to his comments on his executive power to address the detentions and deportations of DREAMers.

For more details on the HALT Act, check out this article from Marshall Fitz, the director of immigration policy at the Center for American Progress. 

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