Kansas joins lawsuit opposing Obama’s executive action on immigration

The state of Kansas has joined a federal lawsuit against President Obama’s recent executive action on immigration.

The suit, initially filed on behalf of the state of Texas, “seeks a declaration that the president lacked constitutional authority to abandon enforcement of various provisions of federal immigration law.”

Kansas and 13 other states have joined it, according to a release from the Kansas Attorney General’s Office.

Obama used an executive action last month to halt deportations for about 5 million immigrants who entered the country illegally. That sparked the ire of conservatives who object both to the policy and to Obama’s use of an executive action to enact it.

Obama is not the first president to issue an executive action on immigration, but he had previously said multiple times that he couldn’t “wave a magic wand” to fix the country’s immigration system.

“Until recently, the president repeatedly made clear that there is a lawful way to fix the nation’s broken immigration system and an unlawful way,” Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said in the release. “Until he reversed course last month, the president correctly insisted that he lacked authority under the Constitution to essentially suspend the law or rewrite it to suit his preferences.”

“Frustration arising from political gridlock is not an excuse for a president to bypass Congress, ignoring the law and the Constitution,” Schmidt added, referring to the president’s argument that Congress had failed to act on immigration.

This story was originally published December 3, 2014 at 4:59 PM with the headline "Kansas joins lawsuit opposing Obama’s executive action on immigration."