A lawsuit challenging President Barack Obama's sweeping executive order on immigration will continue despite a setback last week before one federal judge, the lawyer arguing the case, Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch, told "MidPoint" guest host Ric Blackwell on
Newsmax TV on Monday.
"We're confident we're going to win this," said Klayman, who is representing Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio in a lawsuit alleging that the president's actions on immigration have damaged the sheriff's ability to enforce the law and keep the peace.
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A federal judge in Washington, D.C.,
threw out the case on Tuesday, ruling that Arpaio failed to demonstrate any harm from the president's Nov. 20 order, which shields as many as 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation.
Klayman said that he is moving on to a federal appeals court and, ultimately, the Supreme Court, and that he hopes to get expedited hearings because the president's order is set to go into effect within weeks.
"Almost 5 million illegal aliens are getting amnesty and they're getting certain benefits: they're getting work permits. From that, they can apply for drivers' licenses," said Klayman. "Then they can go in and fraudulently ask for voter registration forms so they can vote."
Klayman said the president's actions violate the Constitution because he is effectively writing, or rewriting, federal law with his executive decree, even though the Constitution explicitly delegates lawmaking to Congress.
He said U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, an Obama appointee who worked for Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy on the Senate Judiciary Committee, "sidestepped" that argument in dismissing the Arpaio suit last week.
While Klayman said that Howell is an amicable judge, he added, "She's highly political, and the decision was based upon her subjective politics."
Klayman said the Supreme Court would likely step in because the constitutional question is too big to ignore.
"We had a situation like this in 1776, in the years leading up, when King George III decided he was going to take away the power of the colonies to adjudicate," said Klayman, arguing that Obama, like the British king whose action sparked the American Revolution, is "taking the power away from the people's representatives . . . and he's arrogating it to himself."
Klayman said he is not arguing for wholesale deportation of millions of people who entered the country illegally.
"But there needs to be a rational, case-by-case approach, individual by individual, to make sure that they are here legitimately and have an ability to correct the illegality of their being here," he said.
"I'm not against that, but I am against having 5 million people running around this country with amnesty, many of whom are criminals and many of whom are continuing to commit crimes."
Klayman also discussed the president's move to re-establish diplomatic and limited economic ties with Cuba, calling it evidence of Obama's "kinship" with the neighboring island's familial communist dictators, Fidel and now Raúl Castro.
"Why would you open up relations before they're gone? And why would you do it without the precondition that Cuba have free elections that are monitored by independent experts?" said Klayman.
"It's obviously because this president has a kinship with the Castro brothers," he said, adding, "This president is a socialist, and I believe he's a borderline communist."
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