Dog Bites Man: More Administration Lying

This morning Instapundit links to an article in The Hill discussing a new statement by the Texas Attorney General accusing the Department of Justice of having “misrepresented” facts about the implementation of President Obama’s “executive action” immigration in the court proceedings that resulted in Judge Hansen issuing a temporary injunction.

Unfortunately, and I believe misleadingly, the story presents this issue as simply a “he said, she said” dispute, and quotes the following response from the Department of Homeland Security:

The Justice Department admitted in a court document filed Wednesday that there may have been “confusion” surrounding the administration’s decision to extend renewals to three years.

At the same time, Homeland Security officials told The Hill that they had been upfront about the policy since the start. They and point to a November memo from Secretary Jeh Johnson that directs the agency to phase in those specific changes.

“DHS, in Secretary Johnson’s November 20, 2014 directive, made clear it would begin issuing three-year grants shortly thereafter,” an agency representative said in a statement.

“Approximately 100,000 of those requests were approved prior to a February 16, 2015 court order enjoining the Secretary’s memorandum, including the expansions to DACA. Once the preliminary injunction was issued, USCIS immediately ceased providing the three-year grants.”

What The Hill article fails to reveal is that the DOJ made repeated representations to Judge Hansen that no requests had been approved under the terms of that November memo. Josh Blackman describes the government’s recent admission that it had in fact approved 100,000 requests as “stunning,” and notes that the Texas brief in response to this admission

offers a helpful timeline of all the times the DOJ made clear they would not implement any of the programs, authorized by the November 24, 2014 memorandum until February 18. In particular, on January 14, DOJ stated that “Plaintiffs will not be prejudiced” by the extension “because U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) does not intend to entertain requests for deferred action under the challenged policy until February 18, 2015.”

Blackman notes that the DOJ repeated this assurance during oral argument on January 15:

MS. HARTNETT: In that document [Defendants’ January 14 motion for extension of time] we reiterated that no applications for the revised DACA — this is not even DAPA — revised DACA would be accepted until the 18th of February, and that no action would be taken on any of those ap- plications until March the 4th. …

THE COURT: But as far as you know, nothing is going to happen in the next three weeks?

MS. HARTNETT: No, Your Honor.

THE COURT: Okay. On either.

MS. HARTNETT: In terms of accepting applications or granting any up or down applications.

THE COURT: Okay.

MS. HARTNETT: For revised DACA, just to be totally clear.

Did the Department of Justice know what the Department of Homeland Security was doing, and when did it know it? Does the Department of Homeland Security really regard what the Department of Justice assured Judge Hansen as “upfront” about what it had been doing?

Could it be that Obama administration is legally insane, unable to tell the difference between right and wrong?

 

Say What?