Few topics have spawned more commentary in recent years than unauthorized immigration, and few have generated as much pressure for a solution. But in a decision last week, the U.S. Supreme Court provided a nine-word ruling -- “The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided court,” it read in its entirety -- and no resolution. So a matter that has roiled American politics and government for years will go on roiling.

The result of the Supreme Court action was to return the dispute over President Barack Obama’s immigration program to the lower courts. Obama’s initiative was meant to allow foreigners who are parents of children born here, and people brought here as children, to remain in the country despite their unauthorized status. It removed the threat that they would be deported.

In response to a legal challenge mounted by 26 states, a federal district court granted a preliminary injunction blocking implementation of the plan until the lawsuit is resolved. The administration challenged that district court ruling, but also lost in federal appellate court. The Supreme Court, which has had a vacancy since the February death of Antonin Scalia, split 4-4, so the lower court rulings stand and the case will proceed. But none of these decisions sheds much light on whether the program is legally permissible or not.

We regarded Obama’s remedy the same way he once viewed it -- as a serious overreach that misused presidential power to essentially rewrite immigration law. When activists urged him to take this action, he originally declined. “I am president, I am not king,” he said. “I can’t do these things just by myself.” But he finally decided to go ahead and hope the courts would let him.

Whether he could have won in the end is anyone’s guess. But the case won’t be concluded before he leaves office, and his successor may scrap, modify or expand his effort.

The perils of unilateral executive action that this episode illustrates, though, should induce the next president to do what Obama should have done: Push lawmakers harder to fix our broken immigration system.

Republicans could have prevented him from trying to usurp the U.S. Congress by simply passing legislation adopting reasonable changes: creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who have lived here for years and stayed out of trouble and are willing to pay a fine; allowing guest farm workers; and increasing the number of legal immigration slots for foreigners who earn advanced degrees in technical fields from U.S. universities. Those changes were part of the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” bill pushed in 2013 by such GOP senators as John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio. It died in the House after clearing the Senate.

As it is, the dilemma will be sitting on the desk in the Oval Office for the next occupant. If it’s Donald Trump, he may try to use his authority to ban immigration from “areas of the world when there is a proven history of terrorism” and deport huge numbers of foreigners. Hillary Clinton, by contrast, has vowed to expand Obama’s program if she can‘t persuade Congress to act.

Either may also get to appoint a justice for the empty seat on the Supreme Court. What Congress does will depend partly on which party controls the House and the Senate, something to be determined on Election Day.

The impasse in Washington has blocked reform, but 11 million foreigners remain here without legal authorization, a status that pleases neither them nor the opponents of undocumented immigration. The people in office today have perpetuated an immigration debacle that no one favors. Maybe those in office next year will finally act to fix it.

(Tribune Content Agency/Chicago Tribune)
Editorial