Spotlight: Obama administration downplays immigration court order while digging way out

The White House on Tuesday downplayed the significance of a court order by federal judge in Texas which temporarily blocked U.S. President Barack Obama's controversial executive action on immigration while weighing its legal response.

After meeting with his new defense chief, Obama expressed confidence at a White House press conference that the court order, which forced the Department of Homeland Security to shelve Obama's new deportation-relief program on the eve of its launch, would be overruled.

"The law is on our side and history is on our side," said Obama, echoing an earlier White House statement which defended Obama's executive actions on immigration as "well within his (Obama) legal authority."

"The Supreme Court and Congress have made clear that the federal government can set priorities in enforcing our immigration laws -- which is exactly what the president did when he announced commonsense policies to help fix our broken immigration system," said the White House statement.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen ruled late Monday night to block Obama's executive actions to shield as many as 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation and bought time for a legion of 26 states who oppose the executive action to pursue a lawsuit to permanently end Obama's executive orders.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the legal team of the White House "were not surprised" when Hanen, a long-time critic of Obama's executive actions on immigration last November, ruled to block Obama's immigration initiatives.

"This is something that we are prepared for," Earnest said. "And we have a very good track record in dealing with these kinds of rulings and ensuring that we pursue a legal strategy that will allow this to be implemented."

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder also sought to downplay the effects of Hanan's ruling, adding that the Department of Justice (DOJ) was reviewing the ruling and was confident the matter would ultimately be taken up by a higher court, possibly the U.S. Supreme Court.

"We have to look at this decision for what it is. It is a decision by one federal district court judge," Holder told reporters.

Meanwhile, White House officials said while the DOJ has already decided to appeal the Hanen ruling, additional steps may be taken to resolve the disruption to implementing Obama's immigration executive order.

"It (the DOJ)is going to determine within the next couple of days any additional steps that may take. That could include a stay, but they haven't made that determination," said Cecilia Munoz, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, on a conference call with reporters.

If the DOJ gets such an emergency stay, namely nullification of the Hanen ruling by a separate court, the new immigration program would still be allowed to proceed while the courts weigh a final verdict on the lawsuits filed against them.

The first phase of Obama's executive orders on immigration was set to start taking effect Wednesday. As a result, young immigrants would be protected from deportation if they were brought to the U.S. soil illegally as children. The second phase would include the protection from deportation for the undocumented parents of Americans and was not expected to begin till May.

Obama's decision to act unilaterally drew anger last year from Republicans who immediately blasted Obama for acting unconstitutionally and Republican lawmakers in Congress were now waging a battle with their Democratic counterparts to link the funding of the Department of Homeland Security with killing Obama's immigration orders. Endi