Millions of lives affected by new U.S. Supreme Court case on immigration

WASHINGTON – Millions of people watched anxiously Monday as the U.S. Supreme Court began a landmark immigration case — one with deep political consequences and arguably deeper human ones.

The stakes were especially personal for people who arrived in buses for the first day of legal arguments in a case pitting the Obama administration against conservative states.

Miguel Zavala was sitting in front of the court building. The 16-year-old’s dad is fighting deportation. If his father is deported, the teen says, the whole family will probably follow its primary breadwinner to Mexico.

That would create a particular challenge for Zavala: “I barely speak Spanish.

“If that happens I’m not going to go to college.”

Zavala and his younger brother were both born in Michigan. He says he’s getting great marks and wants to be a doctor. Their dad is an auto body-shop worker — who entered the U.S. illegally 17 years ago, on foot, across the Mexican border.

With immigration reforms going nowhere in Congress, President Barack Obama introduced different executive actions. One would excuse parents of American citizens from deportation and grant them legal work papers. Obama’s actions would bring predictability to many of the 11 million people believed to be in the country illegally.

Most Republican state governments have united to challenge his actions. They won in a Texas court — which ruled that the president was acting illegally.

The case is now before a potentially deadlocked Supreme Court, reduced to eight members by the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. Should the justices split 4-4, the Texas ruling would stand.

The legal debates’s as old as the country itself. It’s about how much power a U.S. president has. Under the Constitution, the president simply executes the laws that Congress passes.

But what if Congress is arguably unclear? The Obama administration says lawmakers have neither modernized the immigration law; nor have they provided the customs agency with the necessary funds to enforce the old one.

So Obama’s argument is that he’s setting priorities — and in this case he says he chooses to let law-abiding families stay, while he works on deporting criminals.

In the first day of hearings, the conservative justices sparred over that issue. They asked: How could these migrants be law-abiding if they break the law simply by being in the U.S.?

Erica Soto said she’s more interested in the human questions.

“There are families who wake up every morning in fear that they could possibly not be with their families at the end of the day,” said the Michigan woman, who is a U.S. citizen, but was on one of the protest buses.

“This is what we’re fighting for.”

She noted the irony of her location.

Protesters were sandwiched between the Supreme Court and the U.S. Congress — the building in the left is dealing with the issue, because the one on the right has been deadlocked for years.

After the 2012 election, the then-Democrat-run Senate passed an amnesty bill with the help of some Republicans. It might have been adopted in the House of Representatives, but Republicans there were bitterly divided and prevented a vote. Now it’s a major presidential election issue.

Jorge Rivera can’t vote in this election. He’s becoming a citizen, but expects to miss the deadline that would have allowed him to vote against Donald Trump.

His path to a normal life began in 1990 with the last amnesty bill. He’d come to visit his sister in California by train and bus, realized his life would be better there and never left.

It was a difficult start. His mother died in Mexico; he couldn’t leave the country for the funeral. Getting official papers later was a relief — it allowed him to start running his satellite-dish-installation business.

Rivera hired a few employees. He now runs a small, web-based radio station. He also plans to change his first name to George — like the first president Bush who gave him amnesty.

“It’s easier for you guys,” he tells a reporter.

“I want to make it easier for you guys.”