The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it will review President Obama's executive action that allows millions of illegal immigrants to stay in the United States.
By taking up the case, United States v. Texas, justices have made it possible that a decision can be handed down before the end of the court's current term in June — right smack in the middle of the election year, and just weeks before Republicans and Democrats meet to formally choose their party's presidential nominees.
Announced in late 2014, the executive action expanded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, and created a new program for parents who came to the U.S. illegally but had children in the United States
Obama's executive action, which came just weeks after Republicans took over control of the Senate, has generated a fierce debate over the immigration issue as well as the broader constitutional question of the limits of presidential power.
The administration has sought to justify the action by arguing that instructing law enforcement agents to hold off on deporting certain populations represented prosecutorial discretion, as agents often make decisions about how aggressively to apply all laws given limited resources. But challengers have argued that by issuing an executive order that applied this concept so broadly, Obama was effectively rewriting immigration law without Congress.