Feds halting preparations for challenged immigration program

A Federal Judge has granted a request to temporarily block President Obama's executive action on immigration.

That means 26 states including Arizona could temporarily block the President's order.

Officials at the White House say they will appeal the ruling. The President's executive action would have gone into effect on Wednesday, sparing up to five million U.S. residents here illegally from deportation.

The White House reacted with the following statement. "The District Court's decision wrongly prevents these lawful, commonsense policies from taking effect, and the Department of Justice has indicated that it will appeal that decision."

As you can imagine, there is a lot of reaction to the ruling, including a demonstration at the State Capitol.

Some state lawmakers and immigrant-rights groups are sending a message, not to be discouraged. That is because they are confident the ruling will be overturned.

"It is not healthy for a human being to be living in the shadows, it is just not healthy," said Idalia Cervantes.

Idalia Cervantes is a United States citizen, however, her parents are not.

"My mom worked as a babysitter all her life; my father worked as a musician all his life, living under the shadows. On November 20th, it was a day of joy," she said.

That was when the new program was announced. Since then they've been preparing to apply.

"We are heartbroken, we heard about this at midnight and it was tears, it was complete tears," said Cervantes.

They are two of more than 135,000 people in Arizona estimated to qualify under Obama's plan, now their future is unclear.

The program is on hold while the issue plays out in the courts. However, supporters of the plan seem confident.

"For the communities that are out there, for the Latino, immigrant communities that are out there, wondering what this means, it means nothing. We will win this. We will overturn this," said Congressman Ruben Gallego.

Arizona is one of the 26 states taking part in the lawsuit.

"Regardless of what you think of immigration, what this lawsuit was about was whether the President had to authority to act unilaterally to change our countries immigration laws," said Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich.

Despite calls to pull out of the lawsuit, the State's new Attorney General plans to stay in.

"Some people may agree with what he is doing here, but what happens the next time there is a President who decided unilaterally to not enforce IRS regulations, or maybe enforce some statutes that are not popular with other people," he said.

Many supporters of the President, including Congressman Ruben Gallego, called on the Governor to remove Arizona from the lawsuit. It would be more of a symbolic move. However, it does not appear that is going to happen.