Holder Calls Texas Judge's Immigration Ruling an 'Interim Step' - Ferguson Probe will be announced before he leaves office

NatlJournal 

A Texas federal judge’s decision to block President Barack Obama’s immigration plans is only an “interim step,” Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. said on Tuesday in Washington.

“I have always expected that this is a matter that will ultimately be decided by a higher court—if not the Supreme Court, then a federal court of appeals,” Holder said in remarks at the National Press Club. The White House said in a statement that the U.S. Department of Justice planned to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

The ruling issued late Monday by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville, Texas, bars the federal government from carrying out a program that would defer deportation for potentially millions of undocumented immigrants who are the parents of U.S. citizen children.

Holder said that “we have to look at this decision for what it is—it is the decision by one federal district court judge. … I think it has to be seen in that context.”

Holder fielded a broad array of questions during Tuesday’s event, touching on subjects such as the death penalty, civil rights, Edward Snowden and Loretta Lynch, the president's pick to succeed Holder as U.S. attorney general.

Death Penalty

Holder said the Justice Department’s review of death penalty practices nationwide was “still underway.” He doubted the probe would end by the time he left office.

Asked whether there should be a moratorium on prisoner executions by lethal injection while the U.S. Supreme Court reviews the practice, Holder said he thought that would be appropriate. He repeated his personal opposition to the death penalty, given “the possibility that mistakes will be made.”

Holder said he disagreed with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia that there was no evidence that the U.S. criminal justice system had executed a person for a crime he did not commit. “I think it’s inevitable, it’s inevitable, that we will find an instance where in fact that has occurred,” Holder said.

Ferguson

Holder said he hoped the Justice Department would announce the results of investigations into the fatal shooting last year of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., before he left office. Prosecutors are deciding whether to bring criminal civil rights charges against the police officer who shot Brown and also whether to initiate a civil case against local officials as part of a broader civil rights probe.

Holder said he was “satisfied” with the department’s progress in the investigations so far. [MORE]