Supreme Court blocks Barack Obama’s immigration plan

A tie vote by the US Supreme Court is blocking Barack Obama’s immigration plan that sought to shield millions living in the US illegally from deportation.

The justices’ one-sentence opinion effectively kills the plan for the duration of Mr Obama’s presidency.

A tie vote sets no national precedent but leaves in place the ruling by the lower court.

In this case, the federal appeals court in New Orleans said the Obama administration lacked the authority to shield up to 4m immigrants from deportation and make them eligible for work permits without approval from Congress.

Texas led 26 Republican-dominated states in challenging the programme Mr Obama announced in November 2014. Congressional Republicans also backed the states’ lawsuit.

The outcome suggests that the direction of US immigration policy will be determined in large part by this autumn’s presidential election, a campaign in which immigration already has played a significant role.

People who would have benefited from Mr Obama’s plan face no imminent threat of deportation because Congress has provided money to deal with only a small percentage of people who live in the country illegally, and the president retains discretion to decide who to deport.

But Mr Obama’s effort to expand that protection to many others has been stifled.

Mr Obama said yesterday’s impasse “takes us further from the country we aspire to be”.

A nine-justice court agreed to hear the case in January, but by the time of the arguments in April, Justice Antonin Scalia had died. That left eight justices to decide the case. The court is assumed to have split along liberal and conservative lines.