Mediaboss Marketing

A day after Judge Andrew S. Hanen of the federal district court in Brownsville, Texas, issued an injunction preventing the Obama administration from implementing itsplan to delay deportation for millions ofundocumented immigrants, the statusof U.S. immigration policyis as confused and uncertain as ever. A few ideas about what might come next are in the links below.

Welcome to Wonkbook. To subscribe by e-mail, clickhere. Send comments, criticism or ideas to Wonkbook at Washpost dot com. Follow Wonkblog onTwitterandFacebook.

What's in Wonkbook:1) Policymakers respond to immigration ruling 2) Opinions, including Wolf on the dollar3) A surprising poll on gay marriage, and more

Number of the day: 11.4 million. That's how many people signed up for health insurance plans under Obamacare this year, according to the White House. The number will likely decline as the year progresses, as people leave their policies. Jason Millman in The Washington Post.

1. Topstory: Policymakers respond to immigration ruling

An appeal could take months. "President Barack Obama's administration faces a difficult and possibly lengthy legal battle to overturn a Texas court ruling that blocked his landmark immigration overhaul, since the judge based his decision on an obscure and unsettled area of administrative law, lawyers said. ... There was no consensus among lawyers with expertise in administrative law and immigration law on whether Hanen would be reversed on appeal. But they said the judge was wise to focus on an area of administrative law where legal precedent is sometimes fuzzy." David Ingram and Mica Rosenberg for Reuters.

Primary source: The opinion.

It doesn't look as though the opinion will resolve the debate in Congress over funding Homeland Security, as some had hoped. "Dont count on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to play dealmaker in the fight over Department of Homeland Security funding. The Kentucky Republican is under intense pressure from conservatives to hold the line against President Obamas immigration actions, and he shows no signs of backing down. ... McConnell could have seized on the injunction to push conservatives toward funding the DHS while the court fight plays out. The fact that he didnt, Senate Democrats say, is a sign that McConnell wont be coming to the negotiating table." Alexander Bolton in The Hill.

Much of Obama's agenda is now in the hands of the courts. "Along with the immigration action, the fate of two of Obamas other signature initiatives a landmark health-care law and a series of aggressive executive actions on climate change now rests in the hands of federal judges. It is a daunting prospect for a president in the final two years of his tenure who believes he is on the path to leaving a lasting impact on intractable and politically perilous issues, despite an often bitter relationship with Congress." David Nakamura and Juliet Eilperin in The Washington Post.

Here's what you need to know to understand the injunction. The Washington Post.

Read more here:
Heres whats next for immigration reform - The ...

For undocumented immigrants in the United States, obtaining health insurance through the government is next to impossible, with both the Affordable Care Act and a recent executive immigration order explicitly declaring them ineligible for health care coverage. That means many are forced to put off preventative care measures and eventually turn to expensive, overstressed emergency rooms once they become severely ill.

Now, state officials are trying to find ways around the federal government's prohibition and provide various kinds of coverage to immigrants who don't qualify for Obamacare. Using state funds, California and New York are pioneering ways to offer comprehensive coverage for undocumented immigrants and others with temporary work visas. A handful of other states offer limited insurance coverage tosubsetsof immigrant populations. But experts warn such programs remain in the minority, and that the overall lack of health care coverage for immigrants in the United States could result in much higher medical bills in the future.

By 2016, 5.1 million undocumented immigrants in the United States will be uninsured, a group of UCLA researchers hasestimated. In 2012, there were anestimated11.2 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. Under the 1986 policy EMTALA, hospitals cannot turn away a person in need of care, regardless of immigration status or ability to pay. Emergency treatment costs to Medicaid amounts to about $2 billion a year, mostly for illegal immigrants, according to a 2013reportby Kaiser Health News. In 2009,researchby the Center for Immigration Studies estimated the cost of treating uninsured and undocumented immigrants at $4.3 billion per year at safety-net facilities like emergency rooms and community health clinics.

Advocates for immigrant health coverage say these sums might be less exorbitant if undocumented immigrants had regular primary care, which would be more accessible if they had insurance. Those bills couldve been drastically reduced, Frank Rodriguez, president of the Latino Health Care Forum, which offers health care outreach and enrollment assistance to the uninsured and underinsured in Texas, said. There are no preventative health measures, so they [undocumented, uninsured immigrants] end up having to use emergency care.

Critics, however,arguethat providing health care to illegal immigrants will encourage more illegal immigration and that taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for social services for those in the country without legal status."County hospitals are overwhelmed with uninsured people, and they've been forced to come up with more money to accommodate these people largely because they've encouraged them to come in," Ira Mehlman, media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, hastoldthe Los Angeles Times.

Unauthorized immigrants could theoretically buy private health insurance, but that option is usually prohibitively expensive.Unauthorized immigrants are not eligible for almost any of the federal, state and local health care programs, and they tend to work in jobs that dont carry employer coverage, Randy Capps, director of research for U.S. programs at the Migration Policy Institute, said.

The other health care option for undocumented immigrants is federally qualified health centers, which are reimbursed by and receive other funding from the government and do not ask questions about immigration status. But federally qualified health centers dont do much primary health care because theyre not reimbursed [for it], Rodriguez said. If a person sought primary medical services at such centers, they would likely have to pay out of pocket, albeit on a sliding fee scale. The undocumented immigrants wont go, he said.

Alvaro Huerta, a staff attorney at the National Immigration Law Center, called it "shortsighted" not to give undocumented and deferred action immigrants access to primary care, given how cost-effective such care be. Every principle of health reform, [for the] documented or undocumented, says, put your money into preventative care, because youre going to be spending 100 times the investment in preventative care when people wind up sick in emergency rooms or hospitals," he said.

On Jun. 15, 2012, the Obama administration issued an executive order granting certain undocumented immigrants immunity from deportation and making them eligible for work permits. A few months later, the administration explicitly restricted its policy so that these immigrants were not eligible for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

California has long been the vanguard for ensuring that immigrants have access to health care and insurance. It allows deferred action grantees under Obama's policies to enroll in Medi-Cal or a parallel public health insurance program, andlawmakers have also proposed legislation to grant all undocumented immigrants eligibility for the same two programs. Most recently, in December 2014, State Senator Ricardo Lara of California introduced SB 4,a bill that tries to make all undocumented immigrants eligible for Medi-Cal.

More:
Immigration, Health Care Reform 2015: States Move To Help Undocumented Immigrants Without Medical Insurance

CHATTANOOGA,TN, (WDEF)-"We always have to remember we are a nation of immigrants we are just coming to terms with our laws by which to adjudicate that." Chattanooga immigration attorney Terry Olsen wants leaders from both sides to talk face to face with President Obama.

"I think you can have increased enforcement, i think you can give a pathway to people here and beyond increase avenues to come to the US that also benefit our area and also our US economically."

The president's proposed reform aims to protect parents of children who arrived in the US, if their children are either current US citizens or legal permanent residents.

The program is called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or (DACA).

But it was shot down by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen of Texas and the majority of Congress.

Congressman Chuck Fleischmann,"Hopefully the president will back off of this initiative of his sit down and work with Congress so we can get meaningful action in the immigration realm, we have to keep our borders secure, reward those who are playing by the rules and we have got to keep the American people safe."

Congressman Scott DesJarlais,"We are just not going to pay for this unconstitutional action as of now there is a federal judge who agrees with us, but the Senate refuses to get the immigrants on board and fund the DHS as it should be so apparently we are going to have a showdown."

Congressman DesJarlais tells News 12 he is concerned that illegal immigrants would be given social security cards and would then sign up to vote.

Attorney Terry Olsen feel this should not be a concern as most immigrants are only going work authorization and driver's licenses but are restricted from voter enrollment.

26 States have opposed the executive immigration order by President Obama including Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia and Texas

Read more here:
Immigration Reform Hangs In The Balance

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., found himself in the hot seat this week at a Nevada book signing after an activist called him out on immigration reform. The Las Vegas Sun reported Wednesday that Astrid Silva, commonly known as the poster child for President Barack Obama's recent executive actions protecting immigrants from deportation, stood up at Rubio's event and asked the potential 2016 presidential contender why he didn't support undocumented immigrants.

"I wanted him to see our faces," Silva told reporters in Spanish. "I told him, you could be the Latino communitys pride if you just supported this." Rubio publicly opposed Obama's decision last year to protect up to 5 million immigrants from deportation by expanding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and creating the Deferred Action for Parental Accountability program.

The correct way to address immigration, Rubio told reporters Wednesday, is spelled out in his book "American Dreams: Restoring Economic Opportunity for Everyone." "Step one is to show the American people that were serious about bringing future illegal immigration under control, Rubio said. Step two is reforming our legal immigration system so that it works better, so that its less costly, more efficient and better for our country. Step three is dealing reasonably with the people that have been here a long period of time and have not otherwise violated our laws."

Rubio also said Wednesday that while he was against the impending Department of Homeland Security shutdown, Congress can't accept any version of the funding bill that finances Obama's immigration policies. The executive actions are unconstitutional, Rubio spokesman Alex Conant told Politico.

The senator appeared in Las Vegas on the same day applications for the president's expanded immigration policy were scheduled to open. A Texas judge halted the process late Monday by issuing a temporary injunction blocking the White House from implementing the program. The Obama administration has indicated it will appeal the ruling.

Here is the original post:
Marco Rubio Immigration Reform: Las Vegas Immigrant Challenges Senator On His Opposition To Obama's Deportation Relief ...

Instead, Republicans say the ruling has united and emboldened them to stand firmly by their strategy of tying funding for the homeland security agency to efforts to kill Obama's executive action, and urged Senate Democrats who have blocked those efforts to heed the ruling.

"Hopefully, Senate Democrats who claim to oppose this executive overreach will now let the Senate begin debate on a bill to fund the Homeland Security department," House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement.

Obama immigration order temporarily halted by Texas judge

Boehner again repeated his claim that Obama took his executive action despite saying "22 times" before that he had no authority to take such action unilaterally. Obama had said he could not act unilaterally on immigration reform, but Democrats have argued the President was not referring to the type of actions he ultimately took.

The Obama administration said in a statement Tuesday that Obama's executive actions "are well within his legal authority" and that the Justice Department has indicated "that it will appeal that decision."

President Barack Obama said Tuesday he's confident that a Texas court's injunction against his executive order delaying deportations for millions of immigrants will ultimately be overruled, and is preparing to implement the order under that assumption.

"The Department of Homeland Security will continue with the planning because we want to make sure that as soon as these legal issues get resolved which I anticipate they will, in our favor that we are ready to go," he told reporters.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called the ruling just an "interim step" in a legal process that will take some time to play out.

"This is a decision by one federal district court judge," Holder said Tuesday at the National Press Club, adding that the Justice Department is reviewing the ruling to determine the next step.

And Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement Tuesday he "strongly" disagrees with the judge's decision, but said his department would comply with the injunction while awaiting the results of an appeal.

Read the original post:
Hill GOP emboldened after immigration ruling