Wednesday was supposed to be the day President Obama officially rolled out the Kenyan welcome mat for all them illegals who've already snuck across our border to infect us with diseases and their strange foreign languages. But oh no, you can un-unfurl that Hispanic flag over the White House, Mr. Thinks He's So President, because United States District Judge Andrew S. Hanen has put a stop to that nonsense, at least for now.

A federal judge in Texas has ordered a halt, at least temporarily, to President Obama’s executive actions on immigration, siding with Texas and 25 other states that filed a lawsuit opposing the initiatives. [...]

The first of those programs was scheduled to start receiving applications on Wednesday and the immediate impact of the ruling is that up to 270,000 undocumented immigrants nationwide who came to the United States as children will not be able to apply for deportation protection under an expansion of an existing executive program. A larger new program is scheduled to begin in May.

The Obama administration's perfectly legal and yet somehow tyrannically lawless action would have zero impact on anyone, really, except for those immigrants who are already here and would have been able to submit a "please don't round me up and deport me" form, which would have been nice for them. But this is America, where you can only have nice things if you are a straight white Christian male property owner, so shut up, dumb Messicans, this land is our land (what we stole from you, but whatevs, that was ages ago, get over it).

Texas, of course, is the ringleader in this lawsuit, which was filed by the state's former attorney general and current Gov. Greg Abbott, because that guy is a dick who is always suing the Obama administration for some egregious offense, like trying to expand health coverage to people. (We recently learned from former Gov. Rick Perry that Texas had a real good reason for suing over Obamacare, because Texans actually love not having health insurance. Perry is also a dick. And an idiot. And he will never be president. But we digress.)

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Texas was joined by a whole mess of other states who are deathly afraid the presence of undocumented workers and their children who are already here will destroy America, even though THEY ARE ALREADY HERE, and hey, check it out, we have not been destroyed just yet. Here is your checklist of Other States What Are Dicks Also:

Alabama

Arizona

Arkansas

Florida

Georgia

Idaho

Indiana

Kansas

Louisiana

Montana

Nebraska

North Dakota

Ohio

Oklahoma

South Carolina

South Dakota

Utah

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Michigan

Mississippi

Maine

North Carolina

Idaho

Tennessee

Nevada.

See? Dicks!

Immigration reform through executive action is something presidents do all the time, though this is the first time it has been attempted by a president who is black, so it's very different. As Judge Hanen noted in his opinion, "the President in his official capacity has not directly instituted any program at issue in this case," because this particular Welcome Mat Act of 2015 is -- or at least was supposed to be -- implemented through a Department of Homeland Security policy, not the president waving his magic tyrant wand pen. Which does not stop the states from quoting words the president has said as some sort of evidence that he must be stopped from being president or something, and that he has "effectuated a change in the law solely because he wanted the law changed and because Congress would not acquiesce in his demands." Even though the whiny plaintiff states have agreed that this is not directly the president's doing, but that doesn't mean they can't be real mad at him anyway.

The states are also complaining that allowing undocumented immigrants to apply for permission to stay put will cost SO MUCH MONEY, and gosh, meanie Obama has already cost the states SO MUCH MONEY, so obviously, they cannot possibly afford to allow people who are already living in their states to continue living in their states. Like, if these already-here immigrants start applying for driver's licenses in Texas, Texas will pretty much go broke, even though the federal government has said, "Not really, you idiots, you can adjust your fee structure to cover those costs, so that's on you." But Judge Hanen agrees with Texas, apparently, that Big Government will force all the states to go broke on driver's licenses for immigrants, and this is a REALLY BIG DEAL, and it requires many pages filled with lots of words to explain how unfair it is to the states and how they will all suffer terribly if they are directed to stop spending all that money rounding up immigrants and FedExing them to not-America nations. Boo hoo. So sad.

Judge Hanen offers some "analysis" about how the federal government burdens the poor suffering states by refusing to give them money to build really big fences, or whatever the latest "how to stop immigrants" fantasy is:

[T]here can be no doubt that the failure of the federal government to secure the borders is costing the states -- even those not immediately on the border -- millions of dollars in damages each year.

And then there's a bunch of stuff about how much money the states claim to spend educating all those icky illegal brown kids, plus giving them health care. And no, there is no discussion of how the states and the federal government benefits from the cheap labor provided, the Social Security and other taxes collected, or, as the Congressional Budget Office concluded in 2007:

“Over the past two decades, most efforts to estimate the fiscal impact of immigration in the United States have concluded that, in aggregate and over the long term, tax revenues of all types generated by immigrants—both legal and unauthorized—exceed the cost of the services they use.” According to the New York Times, the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration claims that undocumented workers have contributed close to 10% ($300 billion) of the Social Security Trust Fund.

But whatever, Texas says it's gonna go broke, THANKS OBAMA. And Judge Hanen agrees:

The States lose badly needed tax dollars each year due to the presence of illegal aliens -- a clear drain upon their already taxed resources.

Well, sure, OK, if y'all say so.

The judge's order is not the final word on the matter; it's just a sneak peak at what his final word will probably be. Until then, sorry Department of Homeland Security, but your nifty little program to let immigrants apply for permission to stay put is going to have to wait until Judge Hanen can hear even more absurd arguments from the aforementioned dick states to then issue his official Final Word that yeah, immigrants suck, send 'em back to wherever.

The White House has already issued its response:

The Supreme Court and Congress have made clear that the federal government can set priorities in enforcing our immigration laws -- which is exactly what the President did when he announced commonsense policies to help fix our broken immigration system. Those policies are consistent with the laws passed by Congress and decisions of the Supreme Court, as well as five decades of precedent by presidents of both parties who have used their authority to set priorities in enforcing our immigration laws.

Also, everyone who has ever gone to a real law school or studied immigration says the president can absolutely do this thing all the presidents always do all the time, so yeah, see you in appeals court, Texas and all those other dick states.

At least no one will be harmed or affected by this preliminary injunction -- except for those millions of immigrants who will have to keep worrying about being deported any ol' time, to save Texas precious moneys. But pffft, like they even count.

[NYT/The Hill]