President Barack Obama's decision to unilaterally grant temporary relief to millions of undocumented immigrants could be stopped through legal action taken by the state of Indiana, according to Republican Gov. Mike Pence.
On Nov. 20, the potential 2016 GOP presidential candidate's spokeswoman Kara Brooks confirmed that preliminary discussions to file a lawsuit halting Obama's immigration plan have started between the governor's office and Attorney General Greg Zoeller's office, according to Indianapolis Star.
Last Friday, House Republicans filed a long-awaited lawsuit against the Obama administration, accusing Obama of overstepping his executive authority to implement the Affordable Care Act, The New York Times reported. And now, Pence has raised the possibility of taking the president to court for announcing a round of executive orders on immigration that will allow up to 5 million undocumented immigrants to apply for legal status.
Apart from Pence's threat, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker have also speculated that their states might challenge the president's action.
Pence, who was a member of the House of Representatives until he was elected governor in 2012, has attempted to push immigration legislation through the House in the past. In 2006, he faced fierce backlash for an immigration proposal that offered a political compromise, leading it to be rejected.
Last Wednesday, Pence pointed to the Nov. 4 election results and said "the American people changed the majority in the Senate," The Courier Journal reported.
"And so what the president ought to do is to sit down in January with the new Republican majority in the Senate and the historically large new majority in the House and search for common ground," he said at a gathering of Republican governors in Boca Raton, Fla.
After Obama's immigration speech last week, the governor said that Obama intended to "by-pass Congress by issuing an executive order changing American immigration laws."
"While reasonable people can differ on ways to improve our nation's broken immigration system, the president's unilateral action is an unacceptable end run around the democratic process and must be reversed," Pence said. "The proper place to debate immigration policy is through the legislative process defined in our Constitution."
"The State of Indiana will carefully evaluate the details of the Executive Order and take any available legal actions necessary to restore the rule of law and proper balance to our constitutional system of government," the governor said.
