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November 13, 2015 CapitalPress.com Appeals court rules against Obama immigration plan Group alleges Obama plans to circumvent court order case unfolds, it could go back to the Tex- as federal court for more proceedings. The National Immigration Law Center, an advoca- By KEVIN MCGILL Obama cy group, urged an Associated Press immediate Supreme NEW ORLEANS — President Court appeal. Barack Obama’s plan to defer de- “The most directly impact- portation of an estimated 5 mil- ed are the 5 million U.S. citizen lion people living in the United children whose parents would be States illegally suffered another eligible for temporary relief from setback Monday in a ruling from deportation,” Marielena Hincapie, a New Orleans-based federal ap- executive director of the organiza- peals court. tion, said in a news release. In a 2-1 decision, the 5th U.S. Part of the initiative included Circuit Court of Appeals upheld expansion of a program called a Texas-based federal judge’s in- Deferred Action for Childhood junction blocking the administra- Arrivals, protecting young immi- tion’s immigration initiative. grants from deportation if they It’s unclear when the Justice were brought to the U.S. illegally 'HSDUWPHQWZLOO¿OHLWVDSSHDORU as children. The other major part, whether the high court would take Deferred Action for Parents of up the case, but the administration Americans, would extend deporta- may be running out of time to get tion protections to parents of U.S. D ¿QDO GHFLVLRQ EHIRUH 2EDPD citizens and permanent residents OHDYHVRI¿FHLQHDUO\ who have been in the country for The Obama administration years. said it would appeal the ruling to 7KH SDJH PDMRULW\ RSLQLRQ the Supreme Court. by Judge Jerry Smith, joined by Republicans had criticized the Jennifer Walker Elrod, rejected plan as an illegal executive over- administration arguments that the reach when Obama announced it district judge abused his discretion last November. Twenty-six states with a nationwide order and that challenged the plan in court. the states lacked standing to chal- The administration argued that lenge Obama’s executive orders. the executive branch was within They acknowledged an argu- its rights in deciding to defer de- ment that an adverse ruling would portation of selected groups of GLVFRXUDJH SRWHQWLDO EHQH¿FLD- immigrants, including children ries of the plan from cooperating who were brought to the U.S. il- with law enforcement authorities legally. or paying taxes. “But those are Texas Gov. Greg Abbott burdens that Congress knowing- praised the ruling. ly created, and it is not our place “President Obama should to second-guess those decisions,” abandon his lawless executive am- Smith wrote. nesty program and start enforcing In a 53-page dissent, Judge the law today,” Abbott said in a Carolyn Dineen King said the ad- news release. ministration was within the law, The ruling further dims pros- casting the decision to defer action pects of implementation of the on some deportations as “quintes- executive action before Obama sential exercises of prosecutorial OHDYHV RI¿FH LQ $SSHDOV discretion,” and noting that the over the injunction could take Department of Homeland Security months and, depending on how the has limited resources. A group opposing illegal immigra- tion suspects the Obama administra- tion wants to circumvent a court order prohibiting a federal program that de- ferred deportations of certain undocu- mented immigrants. And the administration will not comment on the allegation on the re- cord. The Immigration Reform Law In- stitute, an immigration advocacy law ¿UP SRLQWV WR DQ LQWHUQDO GRFXPHQW apparently leaked from the U.S. De- partment of Homeland Security, dis- cussing several options for providing employment authorization to immi- grants. The document analyzes granting such work authorization to four cat- egories of people, with the broadest option including those who have en- tered the U.S. without inspection or overstayed their visas. 7KH RSWLRQ IDYRUHG E\ WKH 2I¿FH of Policy and Strategy — a division of the Department of Homeland Se- curity’s immigration arm — would permit employment authorizations for people who entered illegally but who are now lawfully in the country under programs that defer deportation. One such program, known as the Deferred Action for Parents of Amer- icans and Lawful Permanent Resi- dent, or DAPA, was established by WKH 2EDPD DGPLQLVWUDWLRQ LQ but blocked by a federal judge earlier this year. U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen found the DAPA program was created in violation of administrative procedure law because the federal government didn’t follow public no- tice-and-comment requirements. That ruling was challenged be- fore the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which recently upheld the injunction. Ian Smith, an investigative associ- ate for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, called the leaked memo an “incomplete document” that may foreshadow federal regulations deal- ing with work authorizations. “I don’t know exactly what they’re thinking,” he said of the document’s authors. Administration will ask Supreme Court to take the case 5 By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Press *RVLD:R]QLDFND7KH$VVRFLDWHG3UHVV )DUPZRUNHUVSLFNSDSHUWUD\VRIGULHGUDLVLQVRIIWKHJURXQGDQGKHDSWKHPRQWRD WUDLOHULQWKH¿QDOVWHSRIUDLVLQKDUYHVWLQQHDU)UHVQR&DOLI$JURXSRSSRV- LQJLOOHJDOLPPLJUDWLRQVD\VWKHDGPLQLVWUDWLRQSODQVWRFLUFXPYHQWDFRXUWRUGHU SURKLELWLQJDIHGHUDOSURJUDPWKDWGHIHUUHGGHSRUWDWLRQVRIFHUWDLQXQGRFXPHQWHG immigrants. 7KH :KLWH +RXVH¶V SUHVV RI¿FH referred questions to the Depart- ment of Homeland Security, which refused to comment about the docu- ment or allegations that the admin- istration is trying to side-step the injunction. The White House did not respond to repeated requests to comment on the record. Another Obama administration program that stopped deportations of people who unlawfully entered the U.S. as children, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, ZDVLPSOHPHQWHGLQEXWLVQRW subject to an injunction, Smith said. Some of the policy options in the leaked memo would apply to immi- grants who are eligible for this pro- gram, authorizing them to work in the U.S., he said. The memo may also signal that the federal government is aiming to defer deportations for some immi- grants through the rulemaking pro- cess, he said. While more time-consuming, at- torneys for the government expect that following this process would improve the chances such immigra- tion policies could survive in court, Smith said. Work authorizations for immi- grants who entered the U.S. illegally are troubling because they create an “anchor” that impedes people from returning to their home countries, he said. The option in the leaked memo that would provide work authoriza- tion to nearly any immigrant is the “scariest,” as it would undermine the principle of a controlled immi- gration system that does not disrupt the labor market, Smith said. The leaked document was made available on the website of Immigra- tion Voice, a non-profit group that advocates for reforming rules that pertain to high-skilled immigrants. Capital Press was unable to reach representatives of the group as of press time. Nearly a third of Idaho ag land is rented 81 percent of state’s landlords aren’t farmers By SEAN ELLIS Capital Press Sean Ellis/Capital Press 3RWDWRHVJURZLQD¿HOGQHDU1DPSD,GDKRHDUOLHUWKLV\HDU $FFRUGLQJWRD86'$VXUYH\SHUFHQWRIIDUPODQGLQ,GDKRLV UHQWHGRXWDQGPRVWRIWKHODQGORUGVZKRUHQWWKDWODQGRXWDUH QRQIDUPLQJHQWLWLHV an awful lot of it is being trans- fered by farmers to family mem- bers and it’s a good indication that a lot of farmers are planning to retire soon. “It’s showing that a new gen- eration of farmers is coming in and there are a lot of farmers planning to retire,” said Corey Coles, a land value expert in Rabo AgriFinance’s Nampa of- ¿FH³7KDW¶VWKHWDNHDZD\PHV- sage.” Shelley farmer Stan Searle VDLG WKH VXUYH\ UHVXOWV UHÀHFW what a lot of growers probably already suspect, that a lot of Ida- ho farmers are on the verge of retirement. 46-2/#5 acres to different owners in the QH[W ¿YH \HDUV 2I WKDW WRWDO DFUHV DUH H[SHFWHG WR be sold to non-relatives and DFUHVDUHH[SHFWHGWREH put in trust. Patrick said those types of trusts include insurance com- panies and other large investors buying farmland for investment purposes, and they may also in- clude estates put into trust for tax purposes. Patrick and others said that if DFUHVRIWKDWPLO- lion acres of farmland expected WREHWUDQVIHUUHGLQWKHQH[W¿YH years is going to non-relatives and trusts, that probably means 46-4/#4 BOISE — Almost 31 per- cent of farmland in Idaho is rented and most of the land- lords who rent that land out are non-farmers. A survey conducted by US- DA’s National Agricultural Sta- WLVWLFV 6HUYLFH IRXQG WKDW million acres of farmland in Idaho was rented out by land- ORUGVLQ7KDWUHSUHVHQWHG SHUFHQW RI ,GDKR¶V WRWDO PLOOLRQDFUHVRIIDUPODQG last year. Seventy percent of that rented farmland was cropland ZKLOH SHUFHQW ZDV SDVWXUH Forests and other uses made up the rest. University of Idaho Agri- cultural Economist Garth Tay- lor said the survey results show that “farmers are renting an aw- ful lot of land. They don’t own it because it’s too expensive. The reason for that is that they are farmers, not land speculators.” ,W ZDV WKH ¿UVW WLPH 1$66 has surveyed farmland landlords since 1999. The Tenure, Owner- ship and Transition of Agricul- tural Land survey was conduct- ed in cooperation with USDA’s Economic Research Service. According to the survey, RIWKHWRWDOIDUP- land landlords in Idaho were IDUPHUV ZKLOH WKH RWKHU were non-farming entities, in- cluding partnerships, corpora- tions, trusts and other types of ownership. The large number of non-farming landlords didn’t surprise Sen. Jim Patrick, a Re- publican farmer from Twin Falls who has been contacted several times by institutional buyers seeking agricultural land. “I know the institutional buyers are out there and they’ve bought some pretty large farms in this area,” he said. Based on survey results, farmland landlords in Idaho expect to transfer 1.99 million